“Investigating Evidence” Resources

If you use the  Investigating Evidence curriculum, these resources will help you make the most of it! If you haven’t already,  download the full curriculum (PDF) or purchase your full-color print.

Introduction: Meeting the Standards

Engage students in science practices while building English and math skills.

• For additional information on how Investigating Evidence specifically meets NGSS and Common Core math and ELA standards, check out this PDF document.

Investigation 1: Observe and Wonder

Science begins with curiosity and close observation.

• When taking your students outside to observe the natural world, consider following these outdoor teaching tips to help facilitate a great experience.

Investigation 2: What is Science?

Students will meet some of our Lab scientists and learn about the science process through their exciting work.

• Use the Crossing Boundaries young scientist videos.  (If the video below does not show, try another internet browser.)
• Interested in chatting about science careers with your students? Here’s some information about Careers in Science from PBS and a listing of the Different Fields of Science from another site.
• An 17×22 poster of the front page of the student journal (The Science Process) can be purchased here.

Investigation 3: My Investigation

Designing your own experiments is fun and demands creative thinking!

• These example rubrics (link coming soon) will help you develop a rubric for evaluating students’ investigations.
• A great way to get kids excited about planning and conducting their own investigations is to show them what other kids have done.  Be sure to download BirdSleuth Investigator.

Investigation 4:  Testing Hypotheses

It’s an exciting challenge to plan and implement your own investigation!

• This simple PowerPoint presentation, Variables in Science Experiments, will help you present the concepts of variables and controls to your students.
• Use the Hypothesis Help PowerPoint presentation to help your students learn how to craft a hypothesis from their observations and questions.

Investigation 5:  Show Me the Data

• The Grackles Graphing PowerPoint presentation will help you make teaching graphing fun and easy.

Investigation 6:  Share My Investigation

Sharing what you’ve learned is a critical part of the science process.

• Our BirdSleuth Investigator is full of examples of great student investigation reports for you to share with with students.
• Conduct your peer review, then congratulate your students on their research! Use this three potential Investigating Evidence rubrics to assess student reports. These are a Word document and you may want to add or remove assessment categories depending on what you’ve required of students. (For example, if you don’t require graphs or citations, you may want to leave those fields off; if you require a photo or diagram, you might want to add that to the rubric.)
  • Elementary School Rubric
  • Middle School Rubric
  • High School Rubric

Going Further:  Science is Always Evolving

Keep your students hooked on the science process with this additional resource.

The book, Citizen Science: 15 Lessons that Bring Biology to Life, is a great way to keep your students engaged and involved with citizen science while contributing to real-world data. Designed for 6th through 12th graders, these lessons cover topics from plants to whales to butterflies to birds.  Download a free sample lesson or purchase your copy today!

Integrating Inquiry for Educators: Developing Student Science Practices

• We’ve designed this self-paced course to help educators explore the process of inquiry and scientific investigation, especially as inspired by outdoor observations and citizen-science participation. Our Investigating Evidence curriculum is the “textbook” for the course.