7th Grade Science Guide

Canyons School District

Instructional Supports Department

WHAT IS A CER? Implementation Tools & Resources

Critical Actions for Educators ------------------------------- ● Explicitly teach the CER framework by completing a few together as a class, then allowing students to work in small groups prior to working independently. ● Use the CER sentence frames and rubric to help scaffold for students. ● Time for student discussion to form ideas and opinions is critical to being able to write a good CER. ● Use discussion norms, and other structured classroom discussion elements to support productive discussions in your classroom. ● Classroom implementation sample

Any explanation of scientifc phenomena requires justifcation. To say something is so doesn’t make it a reality. In today’s world, it is important for students to not assume or accept information about a claim at face value. Analytical thinkers are capable of deducing cause and effect, analyzing data and interpreting results, evaluating reasonability and synthesizing information. Students that apply the CER framework articulate coherent explanations about their inquiries. The CER framework provides a scaffold for thinking about science and explaining phenomena. The framework helps students connect the experiences and the content they’ve already learned to new experiences in three steps:

● Claim: Students make a statement about something that has occurred. ● Evidence: Students use evidence that they’ve gathered and data they’ve collected to support their claim. ● Reason: Students connect the claim with the evidence and justify their reasoning and apply scientifc principles to it.

Example: Moon Phases

Claim: There are different phases of the moon because the moon appears different each night.

Evidence: When the moon is at different positions relative to Earth and the Sun, different amounts of sunlight get refected off the moon. This means that at different times, different amounts of the moon appear to be bright. Reason: When we did the lab and my head was in between the “moon” and the “Sun” the entire side of the moon I was looking at appeared completely bright. When the “moon” was in between my head and the lamp, the entire side of the moon I was looking at appeared completely dark. At all other positions, only a fraction of the side of the moon I was looking at appeared bright.