Starting the fellowship was an interesting experience as I did my first summer with the TLIIST program completely virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I learned so much every session, and I especially enjoyed the week where we learned about the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 and the session by Tracy Volz about giving good presentations. It was exciting to meet the other teachers in the program and I liked that we teach different age groups, from elementary to high school, and that we all come from diverse backgrounds. I will admit that I was nervous to start since I was the only new person to the fellowship, but everyone was quite welcoming and I felt like I was with other educators who had a similar mindset and love of science and learning.

Our summer reading consisted of reading the introduction and first four chapters of Trevor Mackenzie's Dive Into Inquiry. It was a really interesting read and made me reflect on my teaching practice and what it really means to have inquiry in my classroom. It makes a compelling argument for implementing inquiry since the very first day of school even though the idea of 'relinquishing control' can be quite frightening.

I have in the past had conversations with students during the first day of class about the characteristics of good vs. bad teaching, as well as the characteristics of good vs. bad students and this has led to a productive conversation about class expectations for all parties involved. I have never taken it as far as the author did as far as co-designing the course syllabus starting on day 1. I think this would definitely be a good way to start the year as far as giving students a good idea about the type of class they are enrolled in and giving them a sense of agency and ownership in their own learning.

It really helped me understand why inquiry is so important in every classroom, and especially the science classroom. I hope to use some of the strategies this upcoming year.

Our second project of the summer was to create and record an online inquiry presentation based on one of the activities done during the summer 2019 inquiry institute. I was able to team up with Nicole Diluglio. We decided to do a presentation on Ice Balloons called How to Inspire Your Students to Ask Questions with Ice Balloons where we explore and explain the difference between investigable and non-investigable questions.

Since I was not present for the original activity Nicole helped fill me in on any of the nuances I missed from reviewing the document for Ice Balloons, and this was a very positive experience. I really enjoyed working with her, and I learned a lot about the activity, how to encourage students to ask questions, and the difference between the question types.