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Potential to Kinetic
Classroom activity:
What's the Picture?
Adapted from Solving the Puzzle, Teacher's Guide to Evolution - a journey into where we're from, and where we're going, a project of WGBH television and Clear Blue Sky Productions.
Purpose:
Students use evidence gained by gradually revealing jigsaw puzzle pieces to experience the process of science.
Materials:
A 300-500-piece jigsaw puzzle divided into six individual envelopes. (Best to eliminate the edge pieces.)
Procedures:
Give each team of students an envelope of jigsaw pieces.
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Students draw 20 pieces randomly from the envelope.
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Based upon the evidence at hand, each team proposes a hypothesis about what the jigsaw picture portrays.
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Write the hypotheses and the evidence on the board and differentiate between observations and inference.
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Have teams select 20 more puzzle pieces from the envelope. Ask them to refine their original hypothesis based upon the additional evidence. (The new evidence may support their original hypothesis.)
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Have teams select five more pieces and repeat the process of hypothesis revision.
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Have teams share their findings with the rest of the class. Ask students to walk around the classroom to see the evidence uncovered by the other teams.
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Allow each team to adjust their hypothesis according to the total evidence revealed by the class.
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Lead a discussion to consider how this activity models the process of science.
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Making observations and inferences
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Revising hypotheses based upon new evidence
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Collaborative work
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Personal biases of the investigators (previous knowledge)
Click here for a text only, student version of this activity.
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