This WebQuest is designed to have students explore the nature of science and scientific
knowledge. To do this, the students will explore science in action. Specifically, they will look
at how a theory is proposed to explain a natural phenomenon and how experimental evidence is
used to test the theory. By examining how observation and experiment have overturned
once-accepted theories, the students should gain an understanding of how science works.
Carrying Out the Activity
To perform this activity, divide the class into teams. The number of people on each team depends
on the number of students in your class. Strategies for ensuring each student does a fair share
of the team's work vary. For example, if you assign an oral presentation of the student reports,
you may assign each student to make part of the presentation. In this case, each student might
be responsible for presenting the answer to one of the questions listed in the "Procedure"
section of the student page. Alternatively, you might choose to assign different team members
the jobs of preparing the written, oral, and electronic reports. Other strategies are possible
and may be used at your own discretion.
This WebQuest asks the students to prepare some sort of report based on their investigations. You
may choose to assign your students to write a paper, to prepare an oral presentation, or even to
create a Web page. You may also choose to assign any combination of the three. In evaluating the
reports, you may choose to use this following
scorecard as your rubric, or you may choose some other method
of assessing student performance.
To conclude the activity, you may carry out a group discussion in class on the students'
findings. You may conduct this in conjunction with oral presentations if you choose to assign
them. In carrying out the discussion, try to convey to the students that many now-debunked
theories were proposed and accepted by intelligent people. Today we have centuries of scientific
data with which to formulate theories. We aren't smarter than the people of the past, we just
have more data and better tools and techniques for gathering information. Furthermore,
conveying to students that a lot of discarded theories were truly plausible explanations given
the evidence available at the time reinforces the nature of scientific knowledge as knowledge
derived from experience and observation.
Unifying
Concepts and Processes—The activity explores how models and explanations are
built using existing evidence, and how they must be changed or discarded in light of emergent
evidence.
Physical
Science—The atomic and molecular structures of matter, chemical reactions,
and the interactions of matter and energy are all involved in this activity.
History and
Nature of Science—The history of science and the nature of scientific knowledge
are the very core of this activity.
This CHF Chemistry WebQuest was created by Mark Michalovic.