• During this more formal encounter with the investigative process, students in lab groups ask questions, construct models, make observations, and read and discuss text materials. Using the student activity, Development of a Model: Analyzing Elemental Abundance, each student records data, conducts analyses, and interprets relationships between evidence and decision making.
• Teachers may introduce technical vocabulary at this point in the learning cycle. The student text, Atoms, Elements, and Isotopes, can be used at this point, or later in the process, wherever deemed appropriate by the teacher.
  

Students interact with peers in order to accomplish many of the tasks in the sections above. Each activity contains lab work done in groups, and preliminary and summary discussions are held as a class.

Students are asked to individually synthesize their knowledge by using what they have learned in group activities and discussions to answer a series of related questions in their laboratory notebook or in another format determined by the teacher.

• In the activity, Development of a Model: Analyzing Extraterrestrial Elemental Abundances, students determine the origin of material from Antarctica, comparing its oxygen isotope ratios to those of other identified samples. Students integrate all they have learned about asking questions and creating graphs to analyze data on these samples. The activity concludes with the class holding a public discussion in which lab groups argue for further support of this type of research.

• In Connecting Models and Critical Questions, students initially meet in lab groups to discuss information provided about a subset of the elements. They finish the assessment individually, creating a mathematical model to explain differences in chemical reactivity among these elements, analyzing the process of developing this model, interpolating from their model the characteristics of a hypothetical element, and planning a presentation to their peers on their model.