b Physical Sciences Concepts: The student produces evidence that demonstrates understanding of structure and properties of matter….
The student states that “…O-Rings when frozen or cold will react different. I feel they won’t stretch properly…” indicating an understanding of how environmental conditions may affect the physical properties of materials.

d Physical Sciences Concepts: The student produces evidence that demonstrates understanding of motion and forces,….
The student designed an experiment in which increasing force was applied to the rubber band. The student measured the change in length resulting from the increase in applied force.

a Scientific Connections and Applications: The student produces evidence that demonstrates understanding of big ideas and unifying concepts, such as…cause and effect.
The student links the temperature effects on rubber elasticity with the failure of the O-Rings to perform properly during the Challenger launch.

a Scientific Thinking: The student identifies and controls variables in experimental…research.
The student altered the independent variable (marble mass) in a systematic manner and evaluated the dependent variable (rubber band length). “We then proceeded to add five marbles at a time. …we measured the stretch of the rubber band.”
“The next day, we did the exact experiment with one change. The plastic bowl this time didn’t have ice.” This clearly indicates understanding of the importance of altering only one condition at a time.

e Scientific Thinking: The student identifies problems…evaluates the accuracy, design, and outcomes of investigations.
The student raises the duration of exposure to freezing temperatures as a possible variable, and suggests extending the exposure time to determine if this has a significant effect on elasticity.

f Scientific Thinking: The student works individually and in teams to collect and share information and ideas.
The student indicates in the Procedure section that experiments were designed and performed as a team, but the data analysis, graphing and report writing were done individually.

c Scientific Tools and Technologies: The student collects and analyzes data….
The student indicates that experiments were repeated three times, and the results averaged to obtain a more precise measurement.
The student calculated a percent change in length to analyze the experimental results.

a Scientific Communication: The student represents data and results in multiple ways, such as numbers, tables and graphs….
The student presented the raw, averaged and percent change in length data in table forms.
The student graphed the averaged data for the two experimental conditions (with and without ice).
The student graphed the percent change in length data for the two experimental conditions.
The student provided a drawing of the experimental setup to supplement her written description of the equipment used.

b Scientific Communication: The student argues from evidence….
The student notes the change in elasticity as a result of cooling demonstrated by her data and argues that this is consistent with her hypothesis that the Challenger O-Rings were unable to perform properly on the day of the accident.

e Scientific Communication: The student demonstrates effective scientific communication, that is the student communicates in a form suited to the purpose and the audience….
The student work contains Introduction, Materials, Procedure, Results, and Discussion sections, typical of a formal scientific report. This is appropriate to the assigned task of reporting results to a Presidential Commission.

a Scientific Investigation: The student demonstrates scientific competence by completing a controlled experiment.
The experiment described in this procedure is properly designed to evaluate the effect of temperature on elasticity. The same procedure was used for experiments at room and ice temperatures.