Models can be tweaked

Models are malleable. They aren’t perfect and are always changing, based on new evidence. Our role as scientists and science readers is to keep an eye out for new ideas that might make us change our existing models.

Use your discretion to decide if you would like the ‘extending the model’ part of this activity to be done individually, in partners, or as a whole class. Similar to all whole-class discussions, encourage students to articulate their reasoning and rationale behind their decisions. You may want to return to the dementia patient and marathon runner and ask students how their models help explain what’s going inside the body, or return to the similarities/differences table on page 7 to further explore the fit between the model and the questions that students have posed about balance in the body.