Professional Development
There is a moment in every science lesson when students are ready to build a model.
By that point in a KnowAtom classroom, the intellectual work is already underway. Students have engaged with a phenomenon, shared observations, debated ideas, and reached consensus on a question to investigate or a problem to solve. The purpose of the work belongs to the class, not the teacher.
What often feels routine in this moment is the handling of materials. Kits are opened. Tools are distributed. Every team receives the same items, whether they need them or not.
This article focuses on a small but consequential shift in that moment: what changes when teachers communicate material access and then allow student pairs to decide what they actually need to build a scientific or engineering model.
The decision students rarely get to make
In many classrooms, materials appear automatically.
Teachers hand out everything “just in case,” hoping to reduce frustration and keep the lesson moving. While well intentioned, this approach quietly removes an important decision from students’ hands.
When materials are pre-selected and pre-distributed, students are no longer asked to consider how a tool or resource connects to the question they are trying to answer. The model takes shape before students have had to articulate their thinking.
When teachers instead pause and ask student pairs to decide what materials they need, the work changes. Students must interpret the shared question, anticipate what kind of evidence will matter, and make choices that shape their model before they ever begin building.
That decision is not extra. It is part of the thinking.
What teachers communicate (and what they intentionally leave open)
By the time students are selecting materials, the teacher is not defining the purpose of the work. That purpose comes from the class’s earlier sensemaking around the phenomenon.
What the teacher does frame are the conditions for the work session.
This includes:
- how much time students have
- what materials are available in the kit
- the maximum amount of each tool or material a team may access if they choose to use it
Just as important is what the teacher does not do. Teachers do not tell students which materials to use, require teams to use everything, or optimize the model in advance.
This balance matters. Communicating access without prescribing use preserves student ownership of the model while keeping the work grounded in shared constraints.
Materials choice as part of building a model
When student pairs decide what materials to use, they are not making a logistical choice. They are making a modeling decision.
They are deciding what belongs in their representation of the system, phenomenon, or problem they are trying to explain. They are prioritizing certain features over others. They are making assumptions that will later be tested through observation and data.
This is especially important in KnowAtom lessons, where models are not final products. They are tools for thinking. A model that includes too much can be just as limiting as one that includes too little.
Allowing students to decide what to include gives teachers a clearer window into how students are interpreting the question and what they believe matters most.
What this looks like across grade bands
Across K–8, the same pattern holds. The sophistication of the model changes, but the role of materials choice remains consistent.
Kindergarten
In Making Things Move, the teacher shows the available ramps, tubes, and blockers and explains the maximum access per team. Student pairs decide which pieces they need to guide and stop a marble. Some pairs choose fewer materials than allowed. That choice becomes part of what they learn about motion and control.
Grades 1–2
In Land and Water, student pairs build surface models to observe how water moves. The teacher names which land materials are available and how much of each a team may use. Pairs decide which surfaces to include based on what they think will help them see differences in water flow.
Grades 3–5
In Life on Earth, students model food webs to analyze environmental change. Rather than using every organism card available, pairs decide which organisms are essential to represent the system they are trying to explain and which relationships can be left out.
Grades 6–8
In Changing Environments, engineering teams design shoreline barriers within criteria and constraints. Students decide how much of each material to use and justify those choices based on the problem they are trying to solve.
In every case, materials are not just supplies. They are part of the reasoning.
What this move actually supports
Allowing students to decide what materials they need does not create agency on its own.
What it does is protect space for agency to develop.
When teachers communicate material access clearly and then step back, students are required to:
- interpret the shared question for themselves
- negotiate decisions with a partner
- connect materials to evidence
- revise their model based on what they observe
These moments make student thinking visible and give teachers meaningful opportunities to listen and learn before intervening.
Material choice does not carry the learning by itself. But when handled intentionally, it ensures that the learning is still being carried by students.
References
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Ritchhart, Ron. Creating Cultures of Thinking. Jossey-Bass, 2015.
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Ryan, Richard M., and Edward L. Deci. Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. Guilford Press, 2017.