Variables

Some of the most important scientific concepts students learn are the result of their ability to see relationships between objects and events. Relationships always involve interactions, dependencies, and cause and effect. The Variables Module has four investigations that help students discover relationships through controlled experimentation. Students will fling, float, fly, and flip objects as they discover relationships in each investigation.

FOSS expects students to:

• Gain experience with the concept of variable.
• Gain experience with the concept of system.
• Design and conduct controlled experiments.
• Construct materials that will be used in the investigations.
• Acquire some understanding of the behavior of pendulums.
• Gain experience with buoyancy.
• Use data to make predictions.
• Apply mathematics in the context of science.
• Record and graph data concretely, pictorially, and symbolically to discover relationships.
• Acquire the vocabulary associated with controlled experimentation.
• Use scientific thinking processes to conduct investigations and build explanations: observing, communicating, comparing, organizing, and relating.