Scientific Method Lesson Plan: Play a Game and Make a Movie

Lesson Procedure:

1. As a class, brainstorm the steps of a science experiment. Ask them how they think a science experiment begins. Once it is established that experiments start with a question, write “Ask a question” on the board. Explain that some questions cannot simply be answered by looking it up, and that sometimes you need to do an experiment.
2. Tell students that today they will watch a BrainPOP movie about the scientific method, which is the series of steps for doing an experiment. Create an anchor chart as a class that will include the six steps of the scientific method. Write: Step 1: Question. What do you want to know? and Step 2: Hypothesis. What do you think is the answer to your question?” Then ask what they think Step 3 is by prompting what they can do to find out the answer to the question. Then write Step 3: Do an Experiment. Review the last two steps: Step 4: What happened during the experiment? and Step 5: What did you learn?
3. Play the BrainPop movie Scientific Method on the whiteboard for everyone to see.  
4. 400;">Meaning of Beep: Scientific Method, which you’ve assigned in advance. Challenge them to play against each other. Encourage them to use use the SnapThought tool to share their thinking as they play.
5. The next day, have students use Make-a-Movie, to create a BrainPOP-style movie about an experiment they’ve conducted in which they’ve used the scientific method. It may be an experiment they’ve done in class or at home. If they’ve never conducted an experiment, encourage them to consider real-life situations in which they did an experiment to answer a question. To help them think of idea, invite them to review BrainPOP’s Scientific Method Flow Chart. The movie should walk through each step.
6. Divide the class into small groups and have them share their movies with each other.