1 What are they?
Scientists collect data, formulate theories and develop models to explain and predict the behaviour of objects in the natural world. Every now and then data is collected that seems to contradict scientific models and theories. This data is known as anomalous data and is important to science because it challenges current thinking and forces scientists to formulate new theories or closely examine old ones.
Anomalous data tasks are a great way to cover the Australina National Science Strand - Science enquiry skills, which specifies, as one of the Sub-strands, that students also need to learn how to analyse data. Providing students with the opportunity to evaluate anomalous data and destinguish clearly between description (what happened) with explanation (why it happened). It also provides a great way for the teacher and student to evaluate student reasoning.
It is best to use anomalous data tasks at the stage of a learning where students are comfortable with the scientific understanding of a studied phenomenan. In each case students are asked to predict what will happen as a result of a particular experiment.
Students need to write the prediction and a detailed explanation of the prediction. After making their prediction and writing an explanation, students observe the experiment directly. Most likely the outcome of the experiment will not match their prediction they will have anomalous data.
Then the students have to revise their prediction by considering the possible causes that contribute to the anomalous data. In doing so, the students will need to either revise the model or revise their assumptions.
Lets try the first one. This one involves energy principles.