Replicability Coloring Page

About this page

Subby builds a block tower, then builds it again exactly the same way, and both towers stand tall. Page 59 introduces replicability, the big-sounding word for a beautifully simple test: if something is really true, it should work again when you repeat it. This idea sits near the end of Chapter 4, The Adventure Kit because it is the final promise a researcher makes before collecting data. Kids already understand it in their bones, since anyone who has rebuilt a block tower knows the joy of getting the same result twice. Doing it again is how we know for sure.

The research skill

Repeating an experiment to see if you get the same result is called replication, and the equals sign between Subby's two towers says it plainly. The secret is a recipe: to build the same tower twice, you need to know which block went where. Researchers write their methods down in detail for exactly that reason, so they, or someone else, can repeat the work and check it. Chapter 4 is where that recipe gets written. In school, it shows up whenever a teacher asks students to show their steps.

Try it at home

Build a tower of five or six blocks while your child watches, then take it apart. Can they rebuild it exactly? Next, switch roles: your child builds a tower and draws a picture recipe of it, bottom block first, showing colors or shapes. Hide the tower and use only the drawing to build a copy. Set the two side by side and draw an equals sign between them if they match. If they do not, look together for the step the recipe left out.

Talk about it while you color

• If you built a tower two times, what would you do to make them exactly the same?
• What is something you can do again and again and it always works?
• What do you think Subby would do if the second tower fell down?