Adventures in the 5th Grade: Science Inquiry

I'm taking a class on Teaching Science as Inquiry. It's been a real eye-opener to the world of teaching science. I've been learning so many new ways to teach science to students. One of the strategies is to teach science through inquiry (hence the name of the class). This means allowing students to explore science through hands-on experiments and through questioning. The process has its roots in discovery learning and constructivism. It's been really interesting incorporating scientific inquiry into my science lessons. It's a lot less structured than what I was used to when I was going to school. However, I can see that it is very effective in getting the students involved in the learning. One thing Ms. Maria always tells us is not to tell the students the answers, but to let them discover their own answers through questioning and experimenting. This was probably the biggest challenge for me. It is such a temptation to tell the students the answer when they ask or to point out mistaken thinking rather than let them work it out on their own. Creating science inquiry lessons also takes a lot more effort than just going by the textbook, but the results are definitely worth it. Here are some pictures of inquiry demonstrations on our Weathering and Erosion Unit.