9th grade students’ performance in the use of evidence during the solving of a problem about human food

Abstract

This work analyses the performance in the use of evidence of six 9^th grade students from a group of curricular diversification while they are carrying out a problem about human food based on two cases of teenagers with food disorders. In order to reach a solution, students should use evidence and coordinate it with the theory provided along a teaching sequence about food and human nutrition. Results show that all students are able to extract and interpret relevant information, and half of them can integrate it in their justifications. Besides two are able to connect data from different data sets with theory to justify their conclusions. To promote students’ development in the use of evidence helps them to apply knowledge to specific problems, and to recognize the relation among different activities, being able to retrieve data provided in the activities in order to build justifications.