The scientific process is very important to helping students gain an understanding of the authenticity of science. If students are only engaged in rote memorization and 'cookie cutter' labs then they'll never understand that science is a process and not a fact to me remembered.
That said, the scientific process involves concepts that can be very difficult for students to grasp, especially so in the absence of scaffolding. The image to the right is a an accurate model for scientific problem solving. Despite having 7 years of university science education under my belt, this diagram makes me want to run for the hills. It is very important that the skills involved in the scientific process are introduced gradually and in such a way that students have the opportunity to practice them, just like any other skill set. Below you will find a few less intimidating process models as well as a few graphic organizers that I plan on using to help ease into scientific reasoning.
taken from: http://explorable.com/deductive-reasoning
taken from: http://explorable.com/operationalization
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