Virginia SOL 5.1.f

Science5th GradeScientific and Engineering Practices

SOL Standard (Key Ideas Cluster)

obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Virginia Standards of Learning for Science · The student will demonstrate an understanding of scientific and engineering practices by

Cluster contents

5.1.f is a Standards of Learning science standard. These are the key ideas and practices under it.

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students gather facts from grade-appropriate articles, diagrams, videos, and trusted websites. They judge whether a source is dependable, then explain findings or proposed solutions clearly to others.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can select relevant evidence from two sources and explain why each source is trustworthy. They summarize in their own words and support a claim, design idea, or solution with evidence.
Common Misconceptions: Students may assume the first search result is reliable or that all websites are equally trustworthy. They may copy exact sentences instead of summarizing, or share claims without evidence.
How to Assess It: Give students a short museum article and an unsigned post about erosion. Ask, “Which source should we trust, why, and what does it teach us? Use two details.”

Lesson moves

Give groups source cards to sort into trustworthy, questionable, and unreliable piles using clues about authors, dates, evidence, and purpose.
Read two accounts of the same discovery, then ask students to write which account is more dependable and cite two reasons.
Play an evidence relay where teams match ecosystem claims with source cards and supporting details while removing irrelevant evidence.
Compare a city water report with a neighborhood social media post, then create a brief public announcement using the stronger evidence.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 5.1.f, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

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