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Links to Curriculum and Assessment

This page details how the ideas, learning plans, activities and resources presented in the GutBugs@School web pages link to the New Zealand curriculum and NCEA to support teaching and learning that is contextualized in exploration of socio-scientific issues linked to the human microbiome.

  1. » Gut Bugs: A Context for Teaching and Learning in Junior Science
  2. » Gut Bugs: A Context for Teaching and Learning in Senior Science
  3. » Links to Science Capabilities
  4. » Links to NCEA Assessment
  5. » Teaching About Nature of Science: An Intentional Act
  6. » Gut Bugs: A Context for Teaching and Learning About Health and Well-Being
  7. » References

Gut Bugs: A Context for Teaching and Learning in Junior Science

 

Links to the New Zealand Science Curriculum: Levels 4 and 5

See the teaching and learning resources page for possible learning outline and activities.

 

Level 4

Level 5

Nature of Science

Understanding About Science:

  • Appreciate that science is a way of explaining the world and that science knowledge changes over time
  • Identify ways in which scientists work together and provide evidence to support their ideas

Investigating in Science:

  • Build on prior experiences, working together to share and examine their own and others’ knowledge
  • Ask questions, find evidence, explore simple models and carry out appropriate investigations to develop simple explanations

Communicating in Science:

  • Begin to use a range of scientific symbols, conventions, and vocabulary
  • Engage with a range of science texts and begin to question the purposes for which these texts are constructed

Participating and Contributing:

  • Use their growing science knowledge when considering issues of concern to them
  • Explore various aspects of an issue and make decisions about possible actions

Understanding About Science: 

  • Understand that scientists’ investigations are informed by current scientific theories and aim to collect evidence that will be interpreted through processes of logical argument
  • Show an increasing awareness of the complexity of working scientifically, including recognition of multiple variables

Participating and Contributing: 

  • Develop an understanding of socio-scientific issues by gathering relevant scientific information in order to draw evidence-based conclusions and to take action where appropriate

Living World

Life Processes:

  • Recognise that there are life processes common to all living things and that these occur in different ways

Ecology:

  • Explain how living things are suited to their particular habitat and how they respond to environmental changes, both natural and human-induced

Evolution:

  • Begin to group plants, animals, and other living things into science-based classifications

Life Processes:

  • Identify the key structural features and functions involved in the life processes of plants and animals
  • Describe the organisation of life at the cellular level

Ecology:

  • Investigate the interdependence of living things (including humans) in an ecosystem
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Gut Bugs: A Context for Teaching and Learning in Senior Science

 

Links to the New Zealand Science Curriculum: Levels 6-8:

 

Level 6

Level 7

Levels 7 & 8

Level 8

Nature of Science

Understanding About Science:

  • Understand that scientists’ investigations are informed by current scientific theories and aim to collect evidence that will be interpreted through processes of logical argument

Investigating in Science:

  • Show an increasing awareness of the complexity of working scientifically, including recognition of multiple variables
  • Begin to evaluate the suitability of the investigative methods chosen

Communicating in Science:

  • Use a wider range of science vocabulary, symbols, and conventions
  • Apply their understandings of science to evaluate both popular and scientific texts (including visual and numerical literacy)

Participating and Contributing:

  • Develop an understanding of socio-scientific issues by gathering relevant scientific information in order to draw evidence-based conclusions and to take action where appropriate
  

Understanding About Science:

  • Understand that scientists have an obligation to connect their new ideas to current and historical scientific knowledge and to present their findings for peer review and debate

Investigating in Science:

  • Develop and carry out investigations that extend their science knowledge, including developing their understanding of the relationship between investigations and scientific theories and models

Communicating in Science:

  • Use accepted science knowledge, vocabulary, symbols, and conventions when evaluating accounts of the natural world and consider the wider implications of the methods of communication and/or representation employed

Participating and Contributing:

  • Use relevant information to develop a coherent understanding of socio-scientific issues that concern them, to identify possible responses at both personal and societal levels
  

Living World

Life Processes:

  • Relate key structural features and functions to the life processes of plants, animals, and micro-organisms and investigate environmental factors that affect these processes

Life Processes:

  • Explore the diverse ways in which animals and plants carry out the life processes
  

Life Processes, Ecology and Evolution:

  • Understand the relationship between organisms and their environment
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Links to Science Capabilities

Science capabilities can be thought of as the knowledge, attitudes, skills and values required to enable students to act on their learning and continue learning into adulthood so that they can engage in the as yet unknown world of the future. 

 

Science capabilities support the development of critically engaged citizenship, “a way of being that is associated with questioning, seeking evidence and understanding, assessing multiple perspectives and taking considered actions that are mindful of the complexity of the challenges and opportunities facing modern societies” (Bay et al., 2019, p. 41).

 

The science capabilities are described by Hipkins and Bull (2013) as a “weaving of the two halves of NZC together to focus on capability-building” (p. 122). They draw together the science essence statement, content strands, the overarching Nature of Science strand and aspects of the ‘front half’ of NZC such as Key Competencies, and support an inclination towards  ‘action’. They provide a way of thinking about the question: What might students need to learn in science, as a certain way of knowing about, thinking about, and finding out about the world, that will support them as informed participators and contributors, now and in the future? (Hipkins & Bull, 2013).

 

Gather & interpret data: Science knowledge is based on data derived from direct, or indirect, observations of the natural physical world and often includes measuring something. An inference is a conclusion you draw from observations—the meaning you make from observations. Understanding the difference between observation and inference is an important step towards being scientifically literate. 

 

Use evidence: Science is a way of explaining the world. Science is empirical and measurable. This means that in science, explanations need to be supported by evidence that is based on, or derived from, observations of the natural world. 

 

Critique evidence: To evaluate the trustworthiness of data, students need to know quite a lot about the qualities of scientific tests.

 

Interpret representations: Learners think about how data is presented and ask questions such as: What does this representation tell us? What is left out? How does this representation get the message across? Why is it presented in this particular way?

 

Engage with science: This capability requires students to use the other capabilities to engage with science in “real life” contexts.

 

(Hipkins & Bull, 2013; Ministry of Education, n.d.)

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Links to NCEA Assessment

Level 1 Science:

  • AS90950 Science 1.11: Investigate biological ideas relating to interactions between humans and micro-organisms

 

Levels 1 and 3 Biology:

  • AS90926 Biology 1.2: Report on a biological issue 
  • AS90927 Biology 1.3: Demonstrate understanding of biological ideas relating to micro-organisms
  • AS91602 Biology 3.2: Integrate biological knowledge to develop an informed response to a socio-scientific issue 
  • AS91607 Biology 3.7: Demonstrate understanding of human manipulations of genetic transfer and its biological implications
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Teaching About Nature of Science: An Intentional Act

The New Zealand curriculum signals a dual intent to nurture future scientists and to develop the scientific literacy and citizenship skills of all students (Ministry of Education, 2007). The overarching Nature of Science (NoS) strand provides the means by which students develop epistemic understandings, dispositions and capabilities which enable them to learn how scientific knowledge is produced (Johnston, Hipkins, & Sheehan, 2017).

The word epistemic relates to the study of how knowledge is produced, or ‘how do we know what we know’? Different disciplines each have their own way of building knowledge and evaluating theories. Science as a discipline has special ways of thinking about, knowing about and finding out about the world. For example, knowledge-building in science demands and relies on empirical evidence (Howe, 2007). The scientific method of a ‘fair test’ is one way, but not the only way, of producing scientific knowledge (Johnston et al., 2017).

The aim is to teach students to think and investigate as scientists do. Helping students to develop epistemic understandings about NoS as a knowledge system and as a way of finding out about the world is key in the development of scientific literacy and capabilities (Hipkins, 2012; Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Ministry of Education, 2007).

 

The disciplinary strands sit beneath the NoS strand and provide the contexts within which students can develop their science skills and knowledge (Ministry of Education, 2007).

 

However, while NoS may be held up as the umbrella strand and while science teachers do express informed views of NoS and scientific inquiry, explicit connections to this overarching and all-embracing domain as evidenced in classroom practices of intentional planning, teaching, learning and assessment can be fuzzy or even absent (Bartos & Lederman, 2014). 

 

Abd-El-Khalick (2013) distinguishes between different approaches used to facilitate the development of students’ NoS capabilities. Teaching with NoS is accompanied with an expectation of implicit development of skills and understanding as a by-product of investigating or experiencing the process of inquiry in science. Teaching about NoS, on the other hand, is an explicit approach which involves designing and including specific NoS learning outcomes as the primary purpose within a variety of planned teaching and learning activities or investigations. Research suggests that teaching about NoS means that students are better positioned, as they develop secure understandings of science as a process and scientists’ work, to undertake authentic science inquiries across various disciplinary domains and benefit from inquiry learning environments (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Abd-El-Khalick, 2013). 

 

The Gut Bugs context can be used to teach students about NoS :

  • To support and enhance students’ conceptions of NoS 
  • To provide explicit examples of key aspects of NoS within the Gut Bugs case study and associated stories
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Gut Bugs: A Context for Teaching and Learning About Health and Well-Being

 

Level 6

Health and physical development A1

Investigate and understand reasons for the choices people make that affect their well-being and explore and evaluate options and consequences

Healthy communities and environments D1

Analyse societal influences that shape community health goals and physical activity patterns
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References

Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2013). Teaching with and about Nature of Science, and science teacher knowledge domains. Science & Education, 22(9), 2087, 2107.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9520-2. 

 

Abd-El-Khalick, F., & Lederman, N. (2000). Improving Science Teachers' Conceptions of Nature of Science: A Critical Review of the Literature. International Journal of Science Education 22(7), 665-701. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690050044044. 

 

Bartos, S., & Lederman, N. (2014). Teachers' knowledge structures for nature of science and scientific inquiry: Conceptions and classroom practice. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51(9), 1150-1184. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21168

 

Bay, J., Yaqona, D., & Oyamada, M. (2019). DOHaD interventions: Opportunities during adolescence and the periconceptional period. In F. Sata, H. Fukuoka, & M. Hanson (Eds.), Pre-emptive medicine: Public health aspects of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (pp. 37-51). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2194-8_3. 

 

Hipkins, R. (2012). Building a science curriculum with an effective nature of science component. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Retrieved from http://www.nzcer.org.nz

 

Hipkins, R., & Bull, A. (2015). Science capabilities for a functional understanding of the nature of science. Curriculum Matters, 11, 117-133. http://dx.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.18296/cm.0007

 

Howe, E. M. (2007). Addressing Nature-Of-Science Core Tenets with the History of Science: An Example with Sickle-Cell Anemia & Malaria. The American Biology Teacher, 69(8), 467-472. https://doi.org/10.2307/4452206

 

Johnston, M., Hipkins, R., & Sheehan, M. (2017). Building epistemic thinking through disciplinary inquiry: Contrasting lessons from history and biology. Curriculum Matters, 13, 80-102. https://doi.org/10.18296/cm.0020

 

Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Science capabilities for citizenship. Retrieved from http://scienceonline.tki.org.nz/Science-capabilities-for-citizenship

 

Ministry of Education. (2007a). The New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum

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