Introduction to the topic

Tops and tails game

This game only requires two coins but it is also good to use music. The rules are as follows:

• The teacher instructs the students that they are free to move or dance around the room while the music plays.
• When the music stops the students must stop moving.
• The teacher says "Top or tails?"
• The students must place their hands on their head (top) or bottom (tail). This could be both hands on their head, both hands on their bottom, or one hand on each.
• Once they have decided they must hold this pose while the teacher tosses both coins.
• 'Heads' on the coin is tops and tails is tails.
• The teachers read out the results of the coin toss.
• Students who were in the correct pose are still 'in' but the other children are 'out' and must sit down.
• The game is repeated (and the music recommences) until a winner is revealed.
• It often works out that the remaining students exit the game at the same time. If this happens you could either declare the last ones to go out as the winners or replay that round until a winner is found.

Probability

(Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_paper_scissors#/media/File:Rock-paper-scissors.svg)

The following diagram is based on the game rock, paper scissors.

If-then statements

An important part of hypotheses is the idea of if-then statements.  This is an important concept which will be expanded in SILO 3.4 'Coding'.  The following video (2:22) touches on if-then statements but only briefly.

Hypotheses

https://study.com/learn/lesson/hypothesis-examples.html

A nervous experiment

Full details for this experiment can be found at https://askabiologist.asu.edu/experiments/nerves.

What you need:

• 1 ruler that shows centimetres
• 1 paperclip (unwound so it looks like a square and the ends are together)
• Paper and pencil

Types of inquiry 

https://www.sciencebydoing.edu.au/pre-2022-curriculum-unit-files

Predictions and educated guesses

Moderated self-assessment

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