A SCALE science immersion unit on animals for kindergarteners helped educators learn it is possible for even the youngest learners to participate in evidence-based scientific inquiry. In an article published in Science & Children, January 2007, the SCALE team of outreach specialists and teachers in Madison, Wisconsin, explained how changing the way teachers responded to student answers that lacked support helped students search for evidence to back their claims. The unit used live animals and a charting system to record evidence-based data that the students contributed through the questioning strategies. When students offered unsubstantiated evidence, the teacher would ask, “How do you know?”

A cornerstone of the Goal 2 professional development model for SCALE immersion is to help teachers develop classroom practice that emphasizes the development of student thinking about questions and evidence. This model is grounded in research done by Deborah Lucas, Richard Lehrer, Nichole Broderick, and Robert Bohanan over two years in a middle school science classroom.

In this paper, the authors describe a framework for supporting student inquiry in K-16 science classes in the context of student investigation of ecologically or environmentally related problems and issues. The framework was developed based on research from a case study in a 6th grade classroom on how to motivate and support student thinking about questions and evidence.