Cross-phase
GETTING TO GRIPS WITH GRAPHS. By Ann Goldsworthy, Rod Watson and Valerie Wood-Robinson. Association for Science Education. pound;35, ASE members pound;29.
Getting to Grips with Graphs is one outcome of a three-year research project run from King’s College London, looking at school science investigations. This package aims to provide the tools key stage 2 and 3 science teachers need to teach pupils how to construct and interpret a variety of graphs, from bar charts to lines of best fit.
With 75 per cent of graphs produced during science investigations incorrectly constructed, and few pupils using graphs as mediating tools when considering experimental evidence, the need for such teching is obvious.
The materials consist of a teacher’s book with photocopiable exercises, overhead transparencies and IT-based tasks. While the materials could be used without access to computers, the IT component is useful, students will enjoy it, and it provides diagnostic information about learning problems.
The quality of the materials is high, they have been shown to work and they can be used flexibly within an existing scheme of work. With the advent of the new national curriculum, these materials should be in use in every science classroom.
Geoff Hayward Geoff Hayward is a lecturer in science education at the University of Oxford department of educational studies .