The "Connect" step of the Stripling Model of Inquiry helps children connect their prior knowledge and experiences with the topic at hand. By doing this, children can develop a deeper understanding of the topic and its relevance. This step can be especially helpful for children who are new to a topic or struggling to understand its importance

In choosing this phase we thought that an allocation to a phase completely focused on giving the opportunity for children to wonder and ask their own questions was essecencial in promoting a meaningful inquiry in the classroom in which the children are intrested in and want to learn more about their questions and have increased authority and engagement overall in their learning. “When students choose their own questions they are motivavted to learn and develop a sense of ownership over the project.(Education Development Center,Inc.,2016p.1).

“students engaged in inquiry are more motivated to pursue learning on their own than students who are fed pre-organized information that they are expected to remember.”(Stripling,2008,p.50)

The investigation stage allows the children to form their own hoypothesis and methods of investiagtion to test these hypothesis. This promotes children using their previous related knowledge on different subjects to form meaninful connections to the new content they are learning allowing children to generate further questions and hypothesis. The investigation stage also promotes students centered learning in which student work collaberatively to test their questions and the teacher acts as a guide to scaffold their learning. Knowledge is Gained when  “people come together to exchange ideas, articulate their problems from their own perspectives, and construct meanings that makes sense to them.” ( Mordechai,2009,p.738)

Using all of the prior phases fo the inquiry cycle, the students is now expected to put their learnings into something they can express to others. When they express their learnings, they make a product they can be proud of and thus making it more personal and easier to remember and connect to other contexts. This phase opens the possibility for the children to be creative with how they want to express themselves and they could use different medias such as make a video, make a presentation or use art. 

“The Express phase is essential to inquiry learning because, when students develop a product to

demonstrate their new understandings and share with others, they solidify their own learning.” (Stripling, 2009, p.3)