Ecosystems
Inquiry Stage: Predict
To make a prediction, you first need to ask a question. Once you have a question, you can use your knowledge and experience to make an educated guess about the answer.
For example, if you are curious about how far a jumping spider can jump, you might ask "How far can a jumping spider jump?" Once you have asked the question, you can use your knowledge of spiders and jumping to make a prediction. You might predict that a jumping spider can jump about 50 times its own body length.
Once you have made a prediction, you can test it by doing an experiment or plan another form of investigation.
Supporting strategies: Making educated guesses
Claim-support-question
Claim-Support-Question is a thinking routine that can help you to make educated guesses. This routine helps you to:
- Make a claim about something you have observed.
- Identify evidence to support your claim.
- Ask a question about your claim or evidence.
To use Claim-Support-Question, follow these steps:
- Make a claim about (or give an explanation for) the topic or investigation.
- This is a statement about what you have observed. For example, you might make the claim that "jumping spiders can jump very high and might have wings."
- Identify evidence.
- This is information that supports your claim. For example, you might identify the fact that you have seen jumping spiders jump very high, that you have seen aphids move in a similar way, and that you think they have wings.
- Ask a question.
- This is a question about your claim or evidence. For example, you might ask “Do some spiders have wings?” or “ Do some spiders have special legs that help them to jump?”
This routine helps us to:
- Give purpose to our predictions
- Make educated guesses, and not just guesses
- Keep track of changes in our thinking - it is helpful to record what we think when we first generate predictions
Ref: http://www.pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Claim%20Support%20Question_2.pdf