Teaching Science K-8

Inquiry Science

The most important thing to remember is that our students are curious; they are excited to learn and ready to explore and ask questions. According to the book Nurturing Inquiry the author Charles R. Pearce (1999) states, "Helping children to think of themselves as being scientifically literate means trusting them as scientists. Scientist ask questions; they do not simply answer questions in a book." (p. 12). It is important to allow students to ask testable questions, these types of questions are the key to opening up the door to inquiry science.

At the beginning of the semester we as a class had the opportunity to interview two students, we had three questions to pick from. I chose to ask my students, "If I have a fresh apple, and if I leave it sitting out for a really, long time, what will happen to it?” My first student pondered the question, and asked, "Did you take a bite of the apple?" then proceed to say, "If you took a bite, I would think it got rotten from fruit flies." Right there I knew, I would be able to have a conversation with this student. He was familiar with decomposition, oxygen, and fruit flies! He said, "fruit flies will make holes in your apple, then air will go through the holes and make your apple turn brown and rot."

Below are the questions and the notes I took for student 1 and 2.

Elicit Questions

1. I have a fresh apple. If I leave it sitting out for a really, really long time, what will happen to it? Why do you think this happens?

Anticipated Response:

The apple goes bad. The apple will turn brown and rot. The apple will break apart.

Possible Probe Questions

What can you tell me about mold? What does rot mean to you and why do you think that will happen to the apple?

Notes from student 1:

J.A.is a sixth grader, who had an interesting theory about the apple. First thing, J.A. wanted to know was if the apple was bitten! J.A. believed that if the apple was bitten, it would turn brown and then fruit flies would come and pick at the apple. Eventually he believed that the apple would be broken down by fruit flies, once the fruit flies were done consuming the apple, then it would slowly finish decomposing on its own.

Notes from Student 2:

R.T is a third grader. His thoughts about the apple being left out was that it was going to become raw, he thought that the apple being left out and not “wrapped” ,or put into a container in a fresh place would cause the apple to go bad and grow mold. Which he told me that mold was brown and sometimes black. R.T. also believed that if the apple stayed out for a long time, it would get squishy. Rudy never mentioned decomposition, his concern was mold.

Lesson Plan on Weather co-taught with Lucia in my first-grade classroom.