When we say Thinking and Working Scientifically, what do you think of? Maybe the term conjures up images of a person in a lab coat mixing bubbling liquids. Or maybe a whiteboard covered in difficult looking mathematical sums! Perhaps you do not know what Thinking and Working Scientifically means? If so, do not worry, we are here to help.
Thinking and Working Scientifically refers to a strand in the Cambridge Primary and Lower Secondary science curriculum frameworks. But what is it? And how does it differ from the Scientific enquiry strand in previous curriculum frameworks?
Thinking and Working Scientifically vs Scientific enquiry
Cambridge Assessment International Education defines Thinking and Working Scientifically as: “developing understanding and skills of scientific models and representations, scientific enquiry and practical work.” Essentially, the strand is designed to help your students to develop key science skills.
The Thinking and Working Scientifically strand is made up of four sub-strands:
1. Models and representations
2. Scientific enquiry: purpose and planning
3. Carrying out scientific enquiry
4. Scientific enquiry: analysis, evaluation and conclusions
Some of these sub-strands may look familiar to you. Points 2, 3 and 4 made up the scientific enquiry strand in previous curriculum frameworks. Added to this, is the sub-strand ‘models and representations’, and together these four sub-strands make up Thinking and Working Scientifically.
Here is a simple table that shows the previous sub-strands in Scientific enquiry (the white row) against the new sub-strands in Thinking and Working Scientifically (green row).
Thinking and Working Scientifically builds on the Scientific enquiry strand found in the previous curriculum frameworks to also include understanding scientific models and representations.
Models and representations
Models and representations are central to how learners understand science, but they are also a tool in how professional scientists think about scientific concepts and phenomena. Scientists use models in many ways. For example, a model can help define a question, be used to find an answer, or be the answer.
At school, learners will commonly encounter physical models and diagrams. As they progress through Cambridge Primary and Lower Secondary Science, learners will understand that these show some important features of a system, but are not fully representative of a real world situation or scientific idea.
Scientific enquiry in the new curriculum
As you can see, three of the Thinking and Working Scientifically sub-strands mention scientific enquiry. Which is why it is still important to embed a variety of practical experiences for your learners. For example, this could include:
- Hands-on practical activities (many of which require very little equipment)
- Teacher demonstrations, Planning
- Data interpretation activities
In our resources, we’ve covered all of the sub-strands above to give you peace of mind that we have you covered for Thinking and Working Scientifically. Look out for the ‘think like a scientist’ feature in the learner’s books, which focuses on developing science skills in practice. Finally, for more information, take a look at the science resources on our Primary and Lower Secondary hub.
