Helping students create evidence-based explanations of scientific phenomena is at the core of effective science teaching. 

Stephanie and Tim Slater have began using a "Backward Faded Scaffolding" approach to science inquiry in their introductory astronomy courses at the University of Wyoming.  They carefully sequence their laboratory activities (using web-based data archives) so that students move from being carefully guided through the inquiry process to eventually developing their own research question related to the data set.  In a lab experience, students generally start by looking at a set of data and determining if it supports a given conclusion.  Then, they are given a specific procedure to collect data and asked to generate a conclusion. Next, they are given a questio and have to determine how they will collect data.  Finally, students are expected to generate their own question, collect data, and develop a conclusion.  I worked with a high school science teacher to integrate these activities into the astronomy portion of his 10th grade earth science class.  Students dramatically improved their post-test performance when compared to a control group (we are currently working on writing up these results for publication).  Examples of these activities can be found here: http://www.uwyo.edu/caper/ The approach that they use has potential across many science disciplines.

Victor Sampson and Jonathon Grooms at Florida State University have created a "Generate an Argument Instructional Model" (See The Science Teacher, summer 2010) that follow a similar premise.  This approach focuses on providing students with real-world data and having them develop an argument (or explanation) based on the data.  Their approach uses the following steps:

1. Teacher Identifies the task, problem or question and develops the student directions.
2. Student groups generate a tentative argument based on the data.
3. Student groups create a poster to display their argument and reasoning.  You could even have your students use Glogster for this.  Students view and interact with other groups.
4. After holding a whole class discussion, students individually summarize their argument and reasoning using a writing prompt.

Generate an Argument Solar System Example:

• Student Handout
• Evaluation Rubric

You can find a wide variety of online data sources here.

I found this resource during a #scichat event.  I think it is a great format for lab reports that mimic actual scientific journal articles.  I think it would be really cool to find a way to have students peer review each others journal articles (especially the methodology and conclusion) -- just like what scientists really do!