1. Summary Slide
Investigative Skills

2. Investigative Skills
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Download K1.2_2.0b ‘Investigative skills’ Authored by Keith Ross University of Gloucestershire accessed from
date created February 2006

3. Progression in Sc1 ask questions hypothesise/test/interpret
observation sorting
fair tests
control of variables
qualitative measure
non standard measure
quantitative standard measure
categoric variables
discrete or
continuous variables
A useful activity would be to get student teachers to allocate key stages where these transitions normally take place
teacher led
teacher supported
pupil led

4. Sc1 SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY Ideas and evidence Investigative skills
Planning
Obtaining and presenting evidence
Considering evidence and evaluating

5. Sc1 SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY Approaches to investigations, e.g:
Observation – particularly appropriate for foundation and key stage one to give pupils experiences of new phenomena
Fair testing / control of variables for cause and effect
Survey – e.g. many biological topics
Research

6. Brainstorm Things I could change or vary
These planning boards were developed by:
Goldsworthy A & Feasey R (1997) Making Sense of Primary Science Investigations Revised Edition  Revised By Stuart Ball.   Hatfield: ASE ISBN   
The idea is that pupils use ‘post-IT’ or slips of paper with blu-tac to add their ideas – they will not write on the these sheets.
Things I could measure or observe

7. Deciding what to do choosing variables
I will Change
I will measure(observe)
Now only the variable they want to investigate are stuck in the spaces above, and all the rest (of the input variables) are collected down below “to be kept the same”
I will keep these the same

8. My Question Asking a question
When I Change
What will happen to
Here, then, is the question neatly focused ?

9. What I think may happen Predicting
When I change
(What I Change)
Prediction is important, but additional writing will be needed to complete the prediction – but the sticky slips are still transferred.
I think
(What I measure or observe)

10. What happened Table of results
What I Changed
What I measured
Results can be written on these sheets if they are laminated, else pupils can use more sticky slips of paper for the results

11. My Graph Graph of Results
What I measured
Here the bar chart or line graph can be drawn, with the input (independent) variable across as the x axis.
What I changed

12. Finding patterns in results
What happened to
(what I measured)
A summary of the results, which again will need additional writing, and can be compared with the prediction made earlier.
When I changed
(what I changed)

13. This can be made into a matching pairs activity – a useful checklist for planning an investigation