Many science teachers use the Claim Evidence Reasoning (CER) approach to help students organize their thoughts to create better scientific explanations and arguments to communicate their conclusions. This can be an effective approach which your students can then take to the workplace.

Click each part of the approach below to learn more.

When you use this approach, have the students write down the question or problem they are trying to answer first. You can have them create a simple chart which includes the question, and then have them add their claim, evidence, and reasoning.

CER Worksheet Example:

For the following questions, reference the TEKS which outline the scientific practices.

TEA Science TEKS scientific practices 

Note: The above link is to the middle school TEKS which provide the generic scientific practices for each grade. The A–E scientific practices are located under (a) knowledge and skills; (2) Scientific investigation and reasoning. The high school TEKS tailor the scientific practices to each field of science.