Inquiry Science Projects

The journey toward scientific literacy begins with instilling a sense of wonder and sparking students' natural curiosity. Inquiry means that students are handling science; they are manipulating it, working it into new shapes and formats, integrating it into every corner of their world, and playing with it. Inquiry implies that children are in control of an important part of their own learning where they can manipulate ideas to increase understanding. As students learn to think through the designs and developments of their own inquiry, they also develop a sense of self-responsibility that transcends all subject areas. Team Awesome has been encouraged to ask questions and decide where they want to take some of our learning. Many of our pumpkin investigations arose out of their questions and suggestions surrounding pumpkins. From the jars of aerobic and anaerobic pumpkin the children became interested in how and why things rot and we began to experiment with some of their ideas. Every time we revisit our experiments their thinking changes and they have new questions that take us in different directions. Because they have a vested interest in their learning they return to the science table repeatedly to see what is happening and make new theories and hypotheses and suggestions.
Today Kaden began his own inquiry project during free choice time. He had opened a sunflower seed to see what was inside it and then decided he wanted to help it grow. We had discussed what seeds needed to grow earlier in the fall and he filled up the sink with cold water and dropped in the sunflower kernel because he knew it would need water. But he wasn't sure exactly how much or how long to leave it. We chatted about what other things the seed would need to grow and he decided it would be too cold outside and the ground too hard to plant the seed. So Kaden resolved to just soak the seed in some water overnight and see what happened to it- maybe it would still grow. When he put the container on the science table he noticed that there were other seeds there and thought he might like to see what would happen to them if he put them in the water with the lonely sunflower kernel. He added a few (but not a chestnut because they are too big) and then counted them. He had an uneven amount and determined that there should be three of each. He added a few of some and took out a few of others, counting repeatedly. During this whole process a number of other children noticed what Kaden was doing and joined him, asking questions and making suggestions which Kaden evaluated and either acted upon or decided weren't suitable for his project. Kaden was engaged the entire time- exploring, reflecting, and improving on ideas of his own and others, articulating, testing, evaluating, refining or revising his theories about the world, and constructing knowledge.
I can't wait to see where Team Awesome's curiosity takes us next!