Eight ways scientists work
Science and Engineering Practices
The practices are performances students develop across rooms—not a checklist of activity types.
01
Make sense through practice
Students ask questions, build and revise models, plan investigations, analyze data, use mathematics, construct explanations, argue from evidence, and communicate information. Each practice is paired with a disciplinary idea and a crosscutting reasoning lens.
- Ask which student product makes the practice visible.
- Increase independence, comparison, and critique across the year.
- Assess reasoning decisions, not surface features such as poster polish.
02
Progression through the castle
Early rooms make model parts and evidence links explicit. Middle rooms ask students to compare mechanisms and quantify patterns. Final rooms ask students to define constraints, weigh tradeoffs, and improve solutions.
- Introduce with purposeful scaffolds.
- Develop through repeated evidence use.
- Assess through an unfamiliar transfer context.
Professional review remains essential
Adapt this guidance to district policy, adopted materials, actual learners, available facilities, and current authoritative sources.