The MARS project (Raghaven & Glaser, 1995; Raghaven, Sartoris & Glaser, 1998a, 1998b) set out to develop model-building skills in grade 6 students in USA. Working on fundamental topics, e.g., ‘mass,’ ‘force,’ students did practical work, made predictions, inserted these predictions into a model constructed on a computer, ‘ran’ the model so produced to see how the outcomes compared with those produced by the consensus model. The long time scale needed for the development of modelling skills was noted, together with an improvement in the use of the explanation–prediction–evaluation sequence. The construction of a model de novo involves perceiving the emergence of properties of the complete model from those of the components of the model. Penner (2000) has discussed the issues involved and reported that this relationship cannot be established by grade 6 students.
Exemplar sequences to take pupils through these four stages for particular models/phenomena have yet to be developed. The sequence does, of course, assume that the pupils have a good understanding of particular models (see later in this paper).