Make CER practice more engaging with this “Is Dad an Alien?” Claim-Evidence-Reasoning activity.
Students evaluate a series of unusual clues about a girl’s dad and decide whether the evidence actually supports the claim that he is an alien. The lesson encourages students to distinguish between what they observe and what they infer, while practicing how to support a scientific claim with relevant evidence and logical reasoning.
Students can reach different conclusions as long as they use accurate evidence and clearly explain how that evidence connects to their claim.
Students will practice:

• Writing a clear scientific claim
• Identifying relevant evidence
• Explaining reasoning
• Distinguishing evidence from reasoning
• Differentiating observations from inferences
• Evaluating the strength of evidence
• Restating a conclusion
• Supporting an argument with multiple pieces of evidence
  Included in this resource:
• CER Graphic Organizer
• CER Exit Ticket / Review
• Teacher Answer Key
• Sample strong CER response
• Suggested scoring guide
• Teacher notes and common misconceptions
  The teacher answer key includes examples of acceptable evidence and reasoning, guidance for alternate claims, and a suggested 8-point scoring system.
  This activity works well for:
• Introducing CER
• CER review
• Scientific argumentation
• Observation vs. inference
• Evidence vs. reasoning practice
• Beginning-of-year science skills
• Middle school science inquiry
• Formative assessment
  Recommended for: Grades 5–8 / Middle School Science.
  Important before you upload
  There is one thing I would fix before listing this on TES: the folder does not currently contain the video or a student lesson presentation. The answer key clearly refers to students watching a video.
  So I would not write “video included” in the TES description unless you add a legal link/instructions to the external video. If the video is publicly available, you can say something such as “Designed to accompany a short online video; video not included.”
  Also, the two student files are still Google Docs. Download the folder first so Google converts them to Word files, or export them as PDFs before uploading to TES. The answer key is already a PDF.