Before learning can effectively occur in the classroom, students need to acquire basic skills. Science Skills provides an opportunity for students to develop the skills and practices that will enable them to fully comprehend science theory. The book aims to develop students' more general analytic skills, such as decision making, negotiating, researching and communication. The Science Skills series features activities labelled by the skill which they are designed to develop. Exercises follow each activity enabling students to revise and reinforce the skills acquired in the activity section. Activities are listed in the contents by both skill and topic allowing science teachers to deal with a specific skill across a range of conceptual contexts.

Table of Contents

Table of contents by skill; Chapter 1. Scientists experiment: 1.1. Observing and reporting, 1.2. Designing experiments, 1.3. Hypothesis and fair testing, 1.4. Reporting on practical work, 1.5. Making models, 1.6. Testing and reporting, 1.7. Designing and reporting, 1.8. Reporting practical work, 1.9. Using information, 1.10. Practical design, 1.11. Scientific observation and methodology, 1.12. Writing practical reports; Chapter 2. Scientists organise: 2.1. Food chains, webs and pyramids, 2.2. Complex tables, 2.3. Interpreting and making divided bar graphs, 2.4. More divided bar graphs, 2.5. Questions based on tables, 2.6. Making your own table, 2.7. Multiple-line graphs, 2.8. Mean, median and mode, 2.9. More averages, 2.10. Making branch keys, 2.11. Making more tables, 2.12. Questions based on tables; Chapter 3. Scientists communicate: 3.1. Technicality, 3.2. Interpreting diagrams, 3.3. The smoking maze, 3.4. Connecting and simplifying, 3.5. Symbols, 3.6. Summarising, 3.7. Technicality, 3.8. Choosing voice, 3.9. Navigating paragraphs, 3.10. Creative writing, 3.11. Explanations, 3.12. Levels of meaning; Chapter 4. Scientists research: 4.1. Creating a data grid, 4.2. Reading for information, 4.3. Summarising, 4.4. Summarising text, 4.5. Interpreting models, 4.6. Equations - a special sort of summary, 4.7. Glossary, 4.8. Interpreting diagrams, 4.9. Interpreting wave diagrams, 4.10. Ordering information, 4.11. Grouping information, 4.12. Making a bibliography; Chapter 5. Scientists solve problems: 5.1. Thinking laterally, 5.2. Practical design, 5.3. Observing and thinking, 5.4. Decision-making and reconciliation, 5.5. Problems, solutions and consequences, 5.6. Measurement, 5.7. Trial and error, 5.8. Levers, 5.9. Design for acoustics, 5.10. Recognising patterns, 5.11. Brainstorming, 5.12. Planning; Chapter 6. Scientists value and decide: 6.1. Suspending judgement, 6.2. Risk assessment, 6.3. Values in health choices, 6.4. Consumer protection, 6.5. Intrinsic and extrinsic values, 6.6. Cooperation in groups, 6.7. Science and responsibility, 6.8. Negotiating new technology, 6.9. Attitudes to disability, 6.10. Values and resource management, 6.11. Valuing the Earth; Table of contents by topic: Living together, Microbes and biotechnology, Life is a matter of give and take, Making and testing materials, Atoms and molecules, Chemical reactions, Forces, Work and machines, Sound, light and electricity, The changing Earth, The Earth, sky, space and people, Is there life out there?; Glossary