Add to ORKGThis information is designed to connect what students have learned about scientific arguments to the role and nature of explanatory models in science. They will be asked to read and discuss a brief handout about scientific models and their function in science. They will discover that models are ideas that scientists use to explain patterns they see in the natural world, a model is an idea that has predictive and explanatory power and is consistent with other ideas about how the world works, and that models can be compared based on data, the inferences made in the model, and the prior knowledge and beliefs upon which they are based. This site includes instructional notes for the teacher and student handouts. Educational levels: High school, ...