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50 Words For Communicating Science Ideas

The list below includes 50 words—not specific to any scientific discipline—that students are likely to encounter often as they read about, discuss, and participate in science inside school and out of school. These powerful words, which appear frequently in elementary science textbooks and tests, are among the 2500 most critical word families in written English. Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading™ has made it a programmatic goal to teach these words and use them often as students engage in scientific inquiry and read about science.

 

adaptation

adapted

 

analyze

analysis

 

apply

application

 

attributes

 

 

categorize

categories

 

characteristics

 

classify

classification

 

collect

 

 

communicate

 

compare

 

 

concept

 

 

conclude

conclusion

 

connect

connection

 

demonstrate

demonstration

 

device

 

 

diagram

 

 

discover

discovery

 

discuss

discussion

 

evidence

 

 

experiment

 

 

explain

explanation

 

explore

exploration

 

feature

 

 

hypothesis

 

 

identify

identification

 

infer

inference

 

investigate

investigation

 

label

 

 

laboratory

 

 

materials

 

 

measure

 

 

mixture

 

 

model

 

 

observe

observations

 

order

 

 

organisms

 

 

organize

 

 

predict

prediction

 

procedure

 

 

process

 

 

proof

prove

 

record

 

 

relative (size)

 

report

reporting

 

research

 

 

resources

 

 

results

 

 

sample

 

 

substance

 

 

summarize

 


50 Words For Communicating Science Ideas
© 2006 Regents of the University of California, Lawrence Hall of Science’s Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading All rights reserved.

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