Scientific Argumentation In Biology

Develop your high school students' understanding of argumentation and evidence-based reasoning with this comprehensive book. Like three guides in one 'Scientific Argumentation in Biology' combines theory, practice, and biology content.

There are many hypotheses describing the interactions involved in biological invasions, but it is largely unknown whether they are backed up by empirical evidence. This book fills that gap by developing a tool for assessing research hypotheses and applying it to twelve invasion hypotheses, using the hierarchy-of-hypotheses (HoH) approach, and mapping the connections between theory and evidence. In Part 1, an overview chapter of invasion biology is followed by an introduction to the HoH approach and short chapters by science theorists and philosophers who comment on the approach. Part 2 outlines the invasion hypotheses and their interrelationships. These include biotic resistance and island susceptibility hypotheses, disturbance hypothesis, invasional meltdown hypothesis, enemy release hypothesis, evolution of increased competitive ability and shifting defence hypotheses, tens rule, phenotypic plasticity hypothesis, Darwin's naturalization and limiting similarity hypotheses and the propagule pressure hypothesis. Part 3 provides a synthesis and suggests future directions for invasion research.

Educational researchers are bound to see this as a timely work. It brings together the work of leading experts in argumentation in science education. It presents research combining theoretical and empirical perspectives relevant for secondary science classrooms. Since the 1990s, argumentation studies have increased at a rapid pace, from stray papers to a wealth of research exploring ever more sophisticated issues. It is this fact that makes this volume so crucial.

Are you interested in using argument-driven inquiry for high school lab instruction but just aren't sure how to do it? You aren't alone. This book will provide you with both the information and instructional materials you need to start using this method right away. Argument-Driven Inquiry in Biology is a one-stop source of expertise, advice, and investigations. The book is broken into two basic parts: 1. An introduction to the stages of argument-driven inquiry-- from question identification, data analysis, and argument development and evaluation to double-blind peer review and report revision. 2. A well-organized series of 27 field-tested labs that cover molecules and organisms, ecosystems, heredity, and biological evolution. The investigations are designed to be more authentic scientific experiences than traditional laboratory activities. They give your students an opportunity to design their own methods, develop models, collect and analyze data, generate arguments, and critique claims and evidence. Because the authors are veteran teachers, they designed Argument-Driven Inquiry in Biology to be easy to use and aligned with today's standards. The labs include reproducible student pages and teacher notes. The investigations will help your students learn the core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and scientific practices found in the Next Generation Science Standards. In addition, they offer ways for students to develop the disciplinary skills outlined in the Common Core State Standards. Many of today's teachers-- like you-- want to find new ways to engage students in scientific practices and help students learn more from lab activities. Argument-Driven Inquiry in Biology does all of this even as it gives students the chance to practice reading, writing, speaking, and using math in the context of science.

Argumentation—arriving at conclusions on a topic through a process of logical reasoning that includes debate and persuasion— has in recent years emerged as a central topic of discussion among science educators and researchers. There is now a firm and general belief that fostering argumentation in learning activities can develop students’ critical thinking and reasoning skills, and that dialogic and collaborative inquiries are key precursors to an engagement in scientific argumentation. It is also reckoned that argumentation helps students assimilate knowledge and generate complex meaning. The consensus among educators is that involving students in scientific argumentation must play a critical role in the education process itself. Recent analysis of research trends in science education indicates that argumentation is now the most prevalent research topic in the literature. This book attempts to consolidate contemporary thinking and research on the role of scientific argumentation in education. Perspectives on Scientific Argumentation brings together prominent scholars in the field to share the sum of their knowledge about the place of scientific argumentation in teaching and learning. Chapters explore scientific argumentation as a means of addressing and solving problems in conceptual change, reasoning, knowledge-building and the promotion of scientific literacy. Others interrogate topics such as the importance of language, discursive practice, social interactions and culture in the classroom. The material in this book, which features intervention studies, discourse analyses, classroom-based experiments, anthropological observations, and design-based research, will inform theoretical frameworks and changing pedagogical practices as well as encourage new avenues of research.

Provides the information and instruction materials needed to use argument-driven inquiry in high school chemistry classes. Includes an introduction to the stages of argument-driven inquiry and 30 field-tested labs covering a broad range of topics. Includes easy-to-use reproducible student pages, teacher notes, and checkout questions.

A proposal for an interdisciplinary, context-sensitive framework for assessing the strength of scientific arguments that melds Jürgen Habermas's discourse theory and sociological contextualism. Recent years have seen a series of intense, increasingly acrimonious debates over the status and legitimacy of the natural sciences. These “science wars” take place in the public arena—with current battles over evolution and global warming—and in academia, where assumptions about scientific objectivity have been called into question. Given these hostilities, what makes a scientific claim merit our consideration? In Cogent Science in Context, William Rehg examines what makes scientific arguments cogent—that is, strong and convincing—and how we should assess that cogency. Drawing on the tools of argumentation theory, Rehg proposes a multidimensional, context-sensitive framework both for understanding the cogency of scientific arguments and for conducting cooperative interdisciplinary assessments of the cogency of actual scientific arguments. Rehg closely examines Jürgen Habermas's argumentation theory and its implications for understanding cogency, applying it to a case from high-energy physics. A series of problems, however, beset Habermas's approach. In response, Rehg outlines his own “critical contextualist” approach, which uses argumentation-theory categories in a new and more context-sensitive way inspired by ethnography of science.

Describes inquiry-based instruction and explains how to use it in the high school science classroom in accordance with national standards, providing case studies and other tools.