Stage 2: Eliciting Ideas About the Phenomenon

The second stage of MBI is the first enacted in the classroom with students. It involves introducing the anchoring phenomenon and driving question, eliciting and making public students' initial ideas and experiences that may help them develop initial explanations of the phenomenon through the creation of an initial public record, and the construction and sharing of initial models of the phenomenon based on those current ideas. This stage usually takes the first one or two days of the unit.

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Considerations for Teaching for Equity and Social Justice

Equity Approach #1: During this stage, it’s essential to establish classroom norms and routines that ensure every student has a way to contribute their thinking. Eliciting students’ initial ideas—through drawings, conversations, modeling, or everyday language—should be structured in ways that are accessible to all learners. Consider using strategies like turn-and-talks, sentence stems, or multilingual supports to lower the barrier to entry. Create and reference public records (like the Initial Hypotheses List) that validate students' contributions and make their thinking visible as a shared class resource. These early choices shape who sees themselves as a valued contributor to the scientific work ahead.

Equity Approach #2: To increase achievement, representation, and identification with science and engineering, aim to create a safe environment where students' diverse ideas and experiences are elicited, valued, and recognized as important by you and other students and crucial for accomplishing classroom pursuits. In this stage of the unit, this can be accomplished as you position students to use their initial ideas to help the whole class explain the scientifically rich, complex anchoring phenomena. In addition, in this stage, you are supporting students to identify with science as you give them opportunities to decide how to represent a phenomenon as part of constructing and sharing their initial models.

Equity Approach #3: By asking students to explain something that happens in the world in this stage, valuing students' ideas, not as final formed knowledge, but as resources that can support collaborative sensemaking can expand what they understand is an important part of engaging in science and engineering. This reveals that multiple and diverse sets of ideas are needed to explain scientifically rich, complex anchoring phenomena and how science is most effective when students collaborate, instead of working individually, to share, critique, and refine ideas over time. Additionally, commit to noticing and assuming that student thinking is reasonable and fruitful. This might involve asking students to share more if you are struggling to understand connections they are trying to make as they attempt to contribute ideas directly to you, in group, or whole class discussions.

Equity Approach #4: Although the emphasis in this stage is on surfacing students’ ideas about the phenomenon, it can also be a powerful moment to invite questions about fairness, impact, and possibility. When students begin to share their own observations or lived experiences related to the phenomenon, listen for and build on comments that reflect social or environmental concerns. Use these as openings to co-construct driving questions that include a justice-oriented dimension—such as “Why does this happen in some communities more than others?” or “What can be done about this?” This lays the groundwork for positioning science as a tool for understanding and acting on real-world challenges.

Part A. Introduce the Anchoring Phenomenon and Driving Question

The goal here is to introduce the anchoring phenomenon in a way that leaves the students excited to find out the answer! This part ends with framing the unit by providing the driving question.

The followings are examples:

High School (Grades 9-12)

Bring in experience:

Have you heard of Lyme disease? Is it prevalent in our community?
Do you know anyone affected by Lyme disease? How did they catch it? What symptoms did they have?
(for select) Do you know any other disease that is prevalent in our community? How are they transmitted?

Introduce phenomenon:

Provide resources: Students watch videos and read maps talking about the increasing number of Lyme disease cases, the symptoms of infection, basic ideas about how ticks transmit Lyme disease, and different experiences among some racial and ethnic groups.
Ask questions about what they are noticing from the phenomenon:
- Prompt: What did you see going on here? Have you heard anything (events, discussion) like this before? When did it seem to occur?
After whole-class discussion, introduce driving questions: Why are cases of Lyme disease increasing in the US and being experienced differently among some racial and ethnic groups?

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Show photos of what our current city looks like now and work backwards through time. Compare recent vs. deep time. Prompt thinking: What evidence do we have of our local history? (memories, pictures, maps, stories, etc.)
Introduce the Colorado Plateau and the Grand Staircase (Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce)
Explain how the 3 canyons reveal the history of the earth far further back in time.
Show short video clips of the 3 canyons (fly throughs) (Nova - Making North America)
- - Ask students who has been to these places and what they already know, and personal stories.
Summarize phenomenon
Introduce driving question: Why are there different rock layers across the canyons of the Grand Staircase and how can these layers help us understand reveal about the deep history of the Colorado Plateau?
- - Have it written on a poster paper to display for remainder of unit.

Elementary School (Grades 3-5)

Lesson Driving Question: What do you know about emperor penguins?
Students explore the behavioral and structural traits of emperor penguins, identifying observable phenomena.
Students are introduced the unit Driving Question, With the extreme weather conditions in Antarctica, how do emperor penguins survive?
With the class, come up with a definition for evidence.
- “What you see, what others have seen in your learning community, and how it supports what you say.”

Discuss what this means. Guide students to begin gathering scientific information from our observations, thoughts, and wonderings.

Part B. Elicit Students' Initial Ideas, Experiences, and Hypotheses While Creating an 'Initial Hypotheses List' Public Record

Here the goal is to bring out students initial ideas and experiences they may have with the phenomenon or a related phenomenon. The ideas are important resources for moving forward in the unit.

Ask the students to develop initial hypotheses (initial explanations) and keep track of these with a public record. The followings are examples:

High School (Grades 9-12)

Create groups for students to work in throughout the unit (3-4 students per group).
In small groups, ask students to come up with an initial hypothesis to answer the driving questions.
- Prompt: Based on what you’ve seen so far and your experience with Lyme disease or perhaps diseases in general, what do you think is causing cases of Lyme disease to increase? And why do you think it may be experienced differently for different groups of people?
- Provide students a “mini-structure” for constructing sentences.
Facilitate a whole class share out of groups’ initial hypotheses and write them on the ‘Initial Hypothesis’ public record.

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Ask questions about what the canyons can show us about earth’s history.
- - Prompt: Why is the Grand Staircase in different layers? What do these different layers reveal?

How did the rock layers form?

In small groups, ask students to come up with an initial hypothesis (written as complete sentences) to answer the driving question.
Facilitate share out of hypotheses and write group’s hypotheses on ‘Initial Hypotheses’ public record.

Elementary School (Grades 3-5)

Elicit hypotheses about "what might be going on" - whole class, small groups, or one to one, whichever works best for your classroom setting and student needs.
Provide each student with a copy of Emperor Penguins: Alone Zone. Show the YouTube video clip, Expedition Emperor Penguin (starting at 10:36 to 11:46)
- Students record their observations by completing a see, think, wonder brainstorm, making three types of observation. Instruct students to leave these on their desks. (15-20 minutes)
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZFHDFq_axk
  - In the “See” section students write what they directly observed about the emperor penguins in the video, such as their physical appearance, behavior, or interactions.
  - For “Think” the students write what they inferred or thought about their observations, including any assumptions or ideas about why the penguins behave a certain way or survive in severe weather conditions.
  - In the “Wonder” section, students record their questions or curiosities that arose from their observations and inferences on sticky notes.
Press for possible explanations (have them work in small groups for part of this).
In advance, using three large sheets of white post-it paper, write the following: See, Think, and Wonder.
- Teacher may need to make two copies of each poster for larger classes.

Have students group their thinking on each piece of paper by placing it near their peers' post-it notes on the same topics. (10 minutes)

Part C. Construct and Share Initial Group Models

Students use their initial hypotheses to create an initial model.

In this part, the students choose an initial hypothesis to work on through creating an initial model as a group. As in all modeling, the most important part is the discussion about what will be in the model and why. We end with the vital step of sharing out the groups' models for others to learn from in a share-out session. The followings are examples:

High School (Grades 9-12)

Introduce scientific modeling (as necessary):

Start with drawing or writing the specific things important in the model.
Draw in relationships between those things with arrows and labels.
Represent ‘unseen’ or ‘invisible’ processes through magnified snapshots.
Be sure to show how things have changed over time.

Construct initial models:

Ask students to work in groups to construct their first models that answers the driving question using their initial hypothesis.

Share ideas across groups:

Facilitate a whole class share out session. Ask groups to show their models and describe in a few sentences what they decided to include and why.
Common on interesting ideas and patterns across groups.
Describe how they will work on these ideas in the coming weeks as they work together to build a scientific explanation of the phenomenon.

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Give students guidelines about what a model is and how to make a model.
- Draw relationships with arrows and labels.
- Represent ‘unseen’ processes through magnified snapshots.
- Be sure to include mechanisms for how things formed over time.
Work in groups to construct their first model that answers the driving question using their initial hypothesis.
Facilitate share out session - ask each group to quickly show their model and share in 2-3 sentences what they chose to include. Comment on interesting ideas and patterns between models.

Elementary School (Grades 3-5)

Wrap up the lesson by completing, L1: What Do We Know About Emperor Penguins, with the class.
Record the information that the students have grouped on the presentation using What, Evidence, and Question. (See, Think, Wonder)
- Optional: construct an initial model in the whole class by displaying students’ initial ideas in a pre-printed picture.
To conclude, prompt students to free write or draw in their science notebooks, reflecting on what they have learned today. Encourage students to use the lenses of cause and effect and provide a prompt for students to think.

This concludes Stage 2 of planning your MBI Unit.

Let's move on to Stage 3: Negotiating Ideas and Evidence Through Tasks.

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