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Keep, Cut, Question Before the Method — Science Years 9–10

Subject adaptation  ·  Years 9–10  ·  Science  ·  Field-Based STEM  ·  Tony Jones

When AI can supply background information instantly, the scientific thinking that should precede method selection disappears. Context Triage puts selection back in the student's hands before any method opens.

Phase 1
Receive the Information Set
Phase 2
Sort: Keep, Cut, Question
Phase 3
Justify Each Sort
Phase 4
Open the Method

The Strategy

The teacher provides a short curated set of scientific information relevant to the investigation context. Before any method or investigation begins, students sort it and justify their sorting decisions.

  1. The teacher prepares a short set of scientific statements, data snippets, or claims (6 to 10 items) relevant to the investigation context.
  2. Students sort each item into one of three categories: Keep (directly answers the task), Cut (interesting but not relevant here), or Question (needs checking before use).
  3. For each item in the Question pile, students write one sentence naming what would need to be true for this to be usable.
  4. The sorted set, with justifications for Question items, is submitted as the first component of the investigation record before any method begins.

The sort is the first visible evidence of disciplinary reasoning, produced before any tool shapes what the student thinks the investigation is about.

In Practice

Year 9 — Ecology investigation

Students receive eight statements about a local ecosystem, including two that are tangentially relevant and one with a contested claim. The triage forces a decision about what the investigation is actually measuring, before a data collection method is named.

Year 10 — Chemistry or physics context

Students receive a set of claims about variables, including some that are true in general but not applicable to the specific experimental conditions. The sort reveals whether students understand scope and constraint, not just content.

Implementation Notes

Decision checkpoint

Design the information set deliberately: include one or two items that look relevant but are not, and one that requires checking. The productive disagreement among students about where items belong is the learning.

Teacher judgement note

Do not supply the correct sort. The teacher's role is to ask: "What would you need to know to move this from Question to Keep?" That question is the scientific thinking the strategy is designed to make visible.

Related frameworks

Context Triage: Keep, Cut, Question (core)  ·  Verification Slip (Science Years 9–10)  ·  Evaluation Gate

Tony Jones  ·  Founder, Field-Based STEM Tomorrow Ready Resources  ·  Free to use and share