One of my goals as a science educator is to help my students develop skills that they can use in their everyday life. While science includes, learning about specific content of biology, physics chemistry etc. It is also about how to question and develop conclusions based on the evidence provided. So to introduce my series of CER examples I bring you the case of the vegan donut.
Backstory: A bakery on Long Island has been accused of providing a gluten donut instead of a vegan donut as requested by a local vegan market. The details are of the story can be found in this article.
The Question
Q: Are the donuts provided by this baker vegan? or you can be more specific and ask Q: Do these donuts provided by the baker have gluten in them?
It's a really great real-word question because there are many people out there and probably your students that might be gluten-free or gluten sensitive. Also, learning about what is in our food is a great way to segue into chemical compounds.
The Claim:
The answer to the question. In the CER template I provide; there are some sentence starters that can help your students.
The Evidence:
The evidence are screenshots of the data collected on the donut. Here is the google slide.
The Reasoning:
You want your students to use the evidence to help support their claim. In the template I provide; there are sentence starters to get students going.
After you've had a chance to read the article and review the evidence what conclusions are you making??