Learning Goals
Students will be able to distinguish observations, inferences, and claims from PFAS and mercury evidence sources to identify what is directly known about environmental change.
Students will be able to plan and refine an investigation using biological, chemical, physical, and historical evidence to determine whether an ecosystem has changed.
Students will be able to analyze PFAS or mercury data displays and source notes to evaluate how changing environmental conditions affect species and human activity.
Students will be able to interpret limitations, confounding variables, and data quality in environmental investigations to judge the reliability of their conclusions.
Students will be able to justify evidence-based conclusions about PFAS or mercury contamination using documented patterns, comparisons, and unanswered questions.
Products
Environmental Investigation Notebook
Students compile a research notebook that documents their question development, evidence selection, investigation plan, raw notes, data tables, and personal analysis of PFAS or mercury contamination. The notebook must show how they separated observations, inferences, and claims and how they evaluated uncertainty in the evidence.
Community Science Briefing Board and Oral Defense
Teams create a formal briefing board and short oral defense that synthesizes each member’s evidence into shared findings, methodology rationale, visualizations, conclusions, limitations, and next questions. The presentation must directly depend on individual notebook contributions and address conflicting or anomalous evidence rather than smoothing it over.
No rubric has been generated yet.