Open-ended questions can stimulate class discussions and/or serve as the basis for an in-class written exam.
The questions below are adapted from those used to examine the effects of explicitly teaching elementary school teachers how scientific knowledge is produced (Abd-El-Khalick, Journal of Science Teacher Education, 12: 215–233, 2001).
- What, in your view, is science?
- What makes science (or a scientific discipline such as physics or biology) different from other disciplines (e.g., religion, philosophy)?
- What is an experiment?
- Not all scientific knowledge requires experiments.
Provide an example of a valid scientific investigation in which experiments are not possible. - After scientists develop a scientific theory (e.g., atomic theory, theory of evolution), does the theory ever change?
- If you believe that scientific theories do not change, explain why. Defend your answer with examples.
- If you believe that scientific theories do change:
a. Explain why theories change.
b. Explain why we still study scientific theories. Defend your answer with examples.
- Scientists conduct experiments and investigations to answer questions. Do they use creativity and imagination during these processes?
- If yes, at which stages do you believe creativity and imagination are used—planning and design, data collection, or data interpretation? Explain your reasoning and provide examples if possible.
- If you believe scientists do not use creativity and imagination, explain why, and provide examples if appropriate.
- It is believed that about 65 million years ago the dinosaurs became extinct. Of the hypotheses formulated by scientists to explain the extinction, two enjoy wide support. The first, formulated by one group of scientists, suggests that a huge meteorite hit the earth 65 million years ago and led to a series of events that caused the extinction. The second hypothesis, formulated by another group of scientists, suggests that massive and violent volcanic eruptions were responsible for the extinction. How are these different conclusions possible if scientists in both groups have access to and use the same set of data to derive their conclusions?