1. Framing:

The lesson is framed with connections to the overall central question, so that students feel as if they are part of an unfolding story that they are helping to develop -- in this unit, it is the story about how we figure out how plants get their food.
So EACH lesson begins with explicit connections being made to the central question of the unit and to ideas and questions generated in previous activities and experiences. In this phase of the lesson, you might hear the teacher setting the stage by saying something like:
Let’s look at our chart of hypotheses. Yesterday we focused on the hypothesis about soil as a source of food for plants. What evidence did we find to challenge or support this hypothesis? Was it convincing to you? Did it make sense to you? Today we are going to explore the hypothesis about minerals and plant food that you buy at the store. Can we find any evidence today to challenge or support our hypothesis that minerals in the soil and plant food from the store are energy-providing food for plants?

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2. Activity:

The heart of each lesson is some activity (or activities) designed to either establish a shared problem and elicit students ideas, OR to explore phenomena and challenge students ideas, OR to explain new ideas, OR to apply new ideas with teacher modeling, coaching, fading support in this process. What makes a good activity? A good activity:

• Is clearly linked to the central question and the learning objectives and standards--it will help students develop their understanding of the intended objectives
• Involves students in actively thinking, talking, writing, debating about ideas as much as possible (in the context of first hand exploration of phenomena when possible)--this is in contrast with the traditional activity in which the teacher is doing most of the talking and thinking
• Provides support to students to help them learn how to think, talk, write and debate about ideas

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3. Reflection:

Each lesson should support students in reflecting on their thinking processes: Have today’s activities given you any new ideas about our central question? What is confusing? How did you do today in thinking and acting in scientific ways to explore ideas about our central question? Do you have any new evidence to support or challenge any of our hypotheses about how plants get their food? This reflection can take many different forms including class discussion, small group discussion, small group problem solving or concept mapping task, and individual writing/drawing in a science journal
The acronym for this Framing-Activity-Reflection sequence is FAR. This acronym is a fitting reminder of our goal to take each student FAR in changing and developing their thinking about natural phenomena in their experience -- to take each student FAR in a journey of understanding and conceptual change.
This guide does NOT provide the teacher with daily lesson plans, although the teacher pages suggest Possible Teacher Narratives that can be used as lesson plans. The guide provides suggested activities that are effective in either eliciting students’ ideas, exploring phenomena and challenging students’ ideas, explaining new concepts and contrasting them with students’ ideas, providing opportunities for students to use new concepts with modeling and coaching support from the teacher, and challenging students to reflect on their own thinking and learning and to connect their ideas with scientists’ ideas. It is the teacher’s role to draw on knowledge about her/his students to make daily lesson plans in the FAR format.
Thus, the activities in this guide are not designed to be one-lesson activities. We do not presume to be able to predict how long a given class will need to work with a particular activity before it starts making sense. Instead or providing daily lesson plans for teachers, this guide presents a set of activities and optional activities along with a FAR lesson planning framework and an instructional model. It is the intent of this guide that the teacher will be the scientist diagnosing his/her students’ thinking and conceptual development. In this process, the teacher will decide how many lessons are needed to complete a given activity in a way that makes sense to her students.

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