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Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning
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Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning
3
Images of Inquiry in K-12 Classrooms
From the earliest grades, students should experience science in a form that engages them in the active construction of ideas and explanations and enhances their opportunities to develop the abilities of doing science. (National Research Council, 1996, p.121)
Chapter 2 introduced the fundamental concepts that underlie inquiry in science classrooms. It described inquiry not only as a means to learn science content but as a set of skills that students need to master and as a body of understanding that students need to learn. It detailed the five essential elements of classroom inquiry, from engaging with a scientifically oriented question to communicating and justifying explanations (Table 2-5). And it discussed the use of instructional models to organize and sequence inquiry-based experiences.
This chapter looks at the concepts introduced in Chapter 2 in practice. It consists largely of classroom vignettes that show how teachers create learning opportunities to help students achieve science standards that incorporate the essential features of inquiry and are supported by instructional models. In the first vignette, a class of third graders learns basic ideas from the life science standards, several of the abilities of inquiry, and aspects of technological design from a study of earthworms. In the second vignette, a class of eighth graders learn content from the earth and space science standard and strengthen their inquiry abilities through an investigation of the phases of the moon. In the final two vignettes, classes of high school students engage in inquiry-based units involving forces (included in the physical science standards) and
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environmental issues (from the life science and science in personal and social perspectives standards).
These vignettes — each of which is a composite of classroom experiences — provide many opportunities to reflect on the complexity inherent in classroom teaching. In each, inquiry serves both as an outcome and as a means of learning. Different teachers pursue multiple outcomes depending on the nature of the lesson and the teacher’s intentions. Analyses of these examples demonstrate how learning outcomes, the essential features of classroom inquiry, and learning models fit together in real classrooms.
The vignettes can be read in any order, depending on a reader’s interest. However, each vignette should be read in the context of the following three questions:
What are the outcomes that the teacher is striving to achieve?
How are the five essential features of classroom inquiry incorporated into students’ learning experiences?
What is the teacher’s instructional model, and what does he or she do to help students achieve the desired outcomes?
Discussions following each vignette address these three questions.
IMAGES OF INQUIRY IN K-4 CLASSROOMS
Ms. Flores’s third-grade class was engaged in a field study in a vacant lot near the school. In teams of three, the students had measured off a square meter and marked it with popsicle sticks and string. The purpose of the study was to recognize the diversity of organisms that occupy the same environment and understand how that environment meets all of their needs.
During the investigation several students found earthworms in their square meter and became fascinated with earthworm behavior. Some of the other students wanted to know why they did not find earthworms in their study areas. Others wanted to know why the worms were different sizes. One student suggested that worms “liked” to live near some kind of plants and not others, since when she and her dad went fishing they always dug for worms where there was grass.
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Table 3-1. Excerpts from Life Science Standard, K-4
As a result of activities in grades K-4, all students should develop understanding of
The characteristics of organisms
Organisms have basic needs. Organisms can survive only in environments in which their needs can be met. The world has many different environments, and distinct environments support the life of different types of organisms.
Each plant or animal has different structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction.
The behavior of individual organisms is influenced by internal cues (such as hunger) and by external cues (such as a change in the environment). Humans and other organisms have senses that help them detect internal and external cues.
Life cycles of organisms
Plants and animals have life cycles that include being born, developing into adults, reproducing, and eventually dying. The details of this life cycle are different for different organisms.
Plants and animals closely resemble their parents.
Many characteristics of an organism are inherited from the parents of the organism, but other characteristics result from an individual’s interactions with the environment.
Organisms and their environments
All animals depend on plants. Some animals eat plants for food. Other animals eat animals that eat the plants.
An organism’s patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that organism’s environment, including the kinds and numbers of other organisms present, the availability of food and resources, and the physical characteristics of the environment. When the environment changes, some plants and animals survive and reproduce, and others die or move to new locations.
All organisms cause changes in the environment where they live. Some of these changes are detrimental to the organism or other organisms, whereas others are beneficial (p. 129).
The discussion about worms could not have come at a better time, because Mrs. Flores was anticipating a series of lessons to help her students learn some of the basic ideas in the life science standard: characteristics of organisms, life cycles of organisms, and organisms and their environments (Table 3-1). Here was a context for doing so. She contacted a biological supply house and learned that she could order supplies of earthworms with egg cases and immature earthworms. Ms. Flores was delighted because this would enable the children to observe all stages in the worm’s life cycle and some of their habits.
She realized that it would take considerable time for the earthworms to grow, so she decided to include other learning outcomes as well. Her assessments of her students indicated that they needed to work on several of the abilities of inquiry, such as refining a question for investigation and designing an investigation (the abilities of inquiry are listed in Table 2-2 in the previous chapter). She also decided to incorporate some abilities of technological design from the science and technology standard,
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since she thought it would be useful for her students to think about designing “homes” for their worms (Table 3-2). And she knew that a full inquiry would allow her to weave in attention to understandings of inquiry. Perhaps she would invite some local scientists into the classroom to point out similarities between what the students were doing and how the scientists worked.
Anticipating the shipment of worms, Ms. Flores suggested to the children that they build a place for the worms to live. They returned to the vacant lot so
the children could explore where they had originally found worms and study the nature of the soil where they lived. The groups returned to their square meter plots and made notes and drawings of where worms were and were not found. Ms. Flores also asked students to talk to their parents and relatives about where they thought worms lived.
The next day in class the students generated a list of places where they found worms and other places worms might be found. Students suggested looking in wet dirt, under logs, in the roots of plants, and in a compost pile. Ms. Flores then asked them what these places could tell them about how to build a home for worms. In groups of four, the students were asked to design a home for worms using an empty two-liter plastic soda bottle with the top section removed.
The students presented their initial designs before they started building. Students from other groups listened carefully and asked lots of questions since they knew that they could revise their designs after the presentations.
Some students built their worm homes from soil and leaves and put grass on top. Others covered the sides with black paper “so it is like underground.” Others used just soil and placed their bottle sideways. One group punched tiny holes in the side to let air into the soil and to let extra water out.
When the worm shipment arrived, Ms. Flores gave each group a handful of worms and instructed them to observe each worm carefully and draw a picture of it. Drawing provoked many questions, including “What kind of an animal is a worm?” Knowing that children typically have different conceptions of animals, Ms. Flores had them add to their drawings some sentences describing what kind of animal they thought it was and why. Some said snakes; some said insects;
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Table 3-2. Excerpts from Science and Technology Standard, K-4
As a result of activities in grades K-4, all students should develop:
Abilities of technological design
identify a simple problem
propose a solution
implement proposed solutions
evaluate a product or design
communicate a problem, design, and solution
Understanding about science and technology
People have always had problems and invented tools and techniques (ways of doing something) to solve problems. Trying to determine the effects of solutions helps people avoid some new problems.
Tools help scientists make better observations, measurements, and equipment for investigations. They help scientists see, measure, and do things that they could not otherwise see, measure, and do.
Abilities to distinguish between natural objects and objects made by humans
Some objects occur in nature; others have been designed and made by people to solve human problems and enhance the quality of life.
Objects can be categorized into two groups, natural and designed (pp. 137-138).
some had no idea; some said a worm is a worm.
Next, Ms. Flores asked students what questions they had about worms and recorded their responses on a large chart. The questions included: “How do earthworms have babies?” “Do they like to live in some kinds of soil better than others?” “Do they really like the dark?” “How do they go through the dirt?” “How big can an earthworm get?”
Ms. Flores divided the class into groups and asked each group to choose a question that they would like to investigate and develop a plan for how to do so. The next day the groups reported plans for their investigations, which they had recorded in lab notebooks. Ms. Flores asked the group how they could
devise tests that she called “fair.” For example, one group wanted to investigate how much water worms like. Ms. Flores asked, “If you wanted to find out if worms like very wet, wet, medium wet, or dry soil conditions, would it be a ‘fair test’ if you put a worm with very wet soil in a bottle, another worm with wet soil in another
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bottle, and a third worm with medium wet soil in another bottle, then put one bottle in the sun and the other two in the shade?” “No,” called out a student, “because the bottles in the sun would get hot and worms don’t like hot, that’s why they live underground, and you couldn’t tell whether it was the hot they didn’t like or how wet the soil was.” Ms. Flores used another group’s design for an investigation to assess whether other students understood this idea of a fair test.
Ms. Flores then asked the groups how they would know which place a worm “liked” the best. Students’ answers varied. One said if the worms grew bigger and had babies that was a sign they “liked” a place. Several said that if the worms died it meant they didn’t like something. Another suggested that if they set up an experiment where there were different options for the worms, where the worms crawled would tell you what they liked.
With a better understanding of what evidence to look for and how to prepare a fair test, the students were soon deep into their investigations. One group was studying the question of how earthworms have babies. They were busy examining the egg cases that they found in the soil using hand lenses and making drawings. They compared their drawings to those in books the librarian had brought to class for them and read about other characteristics of earthworms.
Two groups were exploring how the worms reacted to changes in their environment. They were struggling with how to deal with moisture, light, and temperature all at once. Ms. Flores asked some leading questions beginning with “what would happen if?” in the hope that the students would discover the value of studying one variable at a time. She would check on them later.
Another group wanted to know about the eating habits of worms. They decided to put slices of different fruits and vegetables into the soil and count the number of worm holes as evidence of what worms liked best. The two other groups set up a discarded ant farm with glass sides to observe the movement of worms in different kinds of soil.
Through the investigations and discussions of their observations, measurements, and library research, Ms. Flores’s students came to know more about the characteristics of worms, for example how they move, their eating habits, their life cycles, the characteristics of their environments, and their relationship to their environments. Their observations, combined with the research they did in library books, helped them understand why worms were not snakes or insects, but members of a phylum called annelid. They used the drawings and information in their lab notebooks to produce their own books, illustrated with drawings and
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diagrams. They also revisited their designs for worm homes, given the evidence they had gathered over the past several weeks, and talked about how they could redesign them to work better.
During the final days of the study, Ms. Flores focused discussions on the ways of thinking and actions taken during the course of their investigations. The students learned to limit their explanations to ones that they could support with evidence from their own observations. Ms. Flores demonstrated how they could check their explanations against scientific reports in books and with the observations of others. They discussed how conducting a fair test helped them be certain that the answers and explanations they proposed were reasonable. They reviewed how they learned to make observations and measurements using hand lenses, rulers, and balances.
For the final section of their books, Ms. Flores asked the students to write a short explanation of what they would tell another student if that student wanted to study worms. She also asked them to write what they would do differently if they had the project to do over again. Finally, each group assembled their drawings, photographs, data tables, and notes of their observations into books and presented the results of their investigation to the
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class. They shared the books with the kindergarten and first-grade students and also took them home for their parents and others to read. Ms. Flores also used their books as a form of assessment and analyzed them for the extent to which students demonstrated understanding of the science concepts and their abilities to think scientifically.
As a culminating activity, Ms. Flores invited two scientists to visit her classroom. To prepare the visiting scientists, she loaned each several of the students’ research report books and she gave them a list of the fundamental concepts for the standard on understanding scientific inquiry. The scientists intrigued the students with their personal stories of investigations that produced evidence similar to observations made by the students. Students were especially interested in the last stage: how the scientists needed to make their results public, which meant that they were often criticized and challenged as part of building a strong base of scientific knowledge.
ANALYSIS OF K-4 IMAGE OF INQUIRY
Learning Outcomes. Ms. Flores sought to help her students achieve several abilities and understandings specified in the National Science Education Standards, including understandings of the characteristics of organisms, their life cycles, and living environments; abilities and understandings of scientific inquiry; and the science and technology standard on technological design. Ms. Flores decided to work especially hard to help her students develop each of the abilities of inquiry — from posing and honing a good question, to conducting a “fair test,” to communicating explanations in different and meaningful ways. Finally, she helped her students understand what scientists do by linking their own inquiries to those of scientists.
In an elementary classroom such as Ms. Flores’, science activities can also help students develop language and mathematics skills — an important concern for young children. In her class, students were developing abilities to communicate their observations in writing and orally, to craft and share their explanations using logical reasoning, and to measure, display, and interpret data. This demonstrates the integrative potential of science activities for elementary school classrooms.
Essential Features of Classroom Inquiry. Ms. Flores’s unit had all of the essential features of classroom inquiry. Her students identified a question of their own interest about earthworms around which to design an investigation. The question derived from their own understanding of the characteristics and environments of
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earthworms and their curiosity about these animals, and so the question they chose engaged them thoroughly. As they developed answers to their questions, Ms. Flores helped them understand that they needed evidence and what the nature of that evidence needed to be. They looked for evidence through their careful observations and what they read in scientific books. Learning about fair tests increased the likelihood that their evidence would be sound. As they collected their evidence, they built their cases for explanations that addressed their questions. The group looking for favorable environments, observed how the earthworms behaved in “homes” with varying amounts of moisture, and arrived at their explanation of just the right amount; the group examining eating habits observed the numbers of worm holes in different fruits and vegetables and explained worm “preferences” through those data. Throughout the investigations, students developed their own explanations using the evidence they collected and compared them with published scientific explanations from their text books, library books, and the Web. Finally, the students communicated their learning in a variety of ways, clarifying what they did, what results they achieved, and how they knew the results were correct. This communication also served Ms. Flores as an assessment of her students’ understanding of life cycles and their abilities of inquiry. As third graders, Ms. Flores’s students did not begin with well-developed inquiry abilities. But because Ms. Flores realized that using earthworms would involve an investigation extending over several weeks, she took advantage of the fact that she could pay a great deal of attention to developing her students’ inquiry abilities as they learned the subject matter content. Therefore, her students’ inquiry was relatively open, with as much coaching as necessary to make sure that the class had many choices for research questions, had a variety of designs for their investigations, and clearly communicated their results.
Instructional Model. Ms. Flores’s unit illustrates an interesting and complex sequence of learning activities. Early in the unit, she engaged the students repeatedly in direct, firsthand experience, first almost by accident as they stumbled upon the earthworms in their study of the vacant lot. Later Ms. Flores involved them again in examining the area where they originally found the worms so that they could think about what kind of “home” they would build for their worms.
As Ms. Flores focused the students on the questions they generated and the ideas they had about worms, they began to explore the worms’ characteristics, their environments, and their life cycles. They made observations
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over days and weeks; tried out their ideas; proposed explanations; and shared what they were learning with others. Ms. Flores called them together on a regular basis to help them synthesize what they were learning and create explanations. She supplemented their explanations with scientific information in library books.
Towards the end of the unit, Ms. Flores gave her students opportunities to elaborate on what they were learning. The visit from the scientists deepened their understanding of how their investigations resembled those of scientists. Finally, Ms. Flores’s continual questioning and coaching gave both Ms. Flores and the students opportunities to evaluate their progress in an ongoing way. The assignment to speculate on what they would do differently were they to repeat their investigation, with some reasons why, allowed them to reflect back and assess the process and value of their work.
An instructional model must not be used as a “lockstep” device that limits the flexibility of a teacher to facilitate an inquiry that is sensitive to students’ needs and interests. This is illustrated by the impossibility of saying where one stage of the instructional model stopped in Ms. Flores’s unit and the other began: students were engaging, exploring, explaining, elaborating, and evaluating throughout the several weeks they spent studying worms. However, her instructional model helped Ms. Flores lay out the unit initially and monitor and assess her students’ learning and development as it proceeded.
IMAGES OF INQUIRY IN 5-8 CLASSROOMS
Each year Mr. Gilbert looks forward to teaching the solar system unit, especially when they get to the moon (see Table 3-3). From past experience, Mr. Gilbert knew that most middle school students have difficulty finding an explanation for the moon’s phases consistent with their direct observations, which always made the unit challenging as well as exciting. Further, learning about the moon’s phases also provided many opportunities for his students to develop critical inquiry abilities: to use scientific instrumentation to increase and
Table 3-3. Excerpts from Earth and Space Science Standard, 5-8
As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of
Earth in the solar system
Most objects in the solar system are in regular and predictable motion. Those motions explain such phenomena as the day, the year, phases of the moon, and eclipses (p. 160).
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book at rest. Most of the class included an upward force by the spring in their diagrams. A few others argued that because the spring was not alive, it could not “exert” a force.
Mr. Hull asked, “So, how come many of you who said the table does not exert a force are now saying that the spring does exert an upward force? The spring isn’t alive.” The students responded, “The spring moves.” “The spring compresses or extends.”
The teacher asked the students to think about what was similar about the situations in which they were willing to say there was an upward force. They suggested that when the book was on the hand, one could see or feel the muscular activity in order to support the book, and when the book was on the spring one could see the change in the length of the spring. Mr. Hull pointed out that they were responding to evidence for a force by looking at some change in the “thing” that is doing the supporting. He wanted his students to be seeking observational evidence in support of their ideas and inferences.
Mr. Hull: “How about those of you who suggest the table does exert an upward force. In what way does that make sense to you?” While gesturing sideways, one student said, “Whenever anything stays still, if there is a force on one side, there has to be a force on the other side to keep it stopped.” Mr. Hull: “ I see you are talking about horizontal forces, does that also work with vertical forces?” Again, he guided his students to see the consistency across contexts, in this case, explanations of the at-rest condition should be the same whether considering horizontal forces or vertical forces. This gave some rational argument for an upward force.
Mr. Hull asked his students to think about evidence. “What observable evidence do you have that the table exerts an upward force?” A few students suggested the table bent like the spring. Others countered, arguing that the table was a heavy, solid demonstration table, that it was rigid and therefore could not bend. The students suggested the need for a critical experiment. “How could we see whether the table bends at all?” asked the teacher. Not hearing any suggestions, Mr. Hull proposed that they use a “light lever.” Bringing out a light source (in this case a laser pointer), he placed it so that the light hit the shiny table top at a low glancing angle. With the room lights off, one could see where the reflected light hit the far wall. The teacher checked to be sure that the students knew that if the table bends, the light on the wall should move. Although the movement was not readily noticeable with one book placed on the table, as the stack got larger and was taken off and back on, the light could be seen to move.
After exploring ideas about force
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through questions, discussion, and observations for much of the class period, the students were ready to summarize their class experience and its implications for the meaning of force. One said: “Since the table bent, like a stiff spring, all things had to deform some to support the book. Deformation was one sort of evidence we could look for when we considered forces.” Another added, “That meant we could give the same explanation [involving an upward force] across several different ‘at rest’ systems.” Another said: “That also meant we didn’t need to worry about whether the supporting object was alive, awake, active, or passive. We could just focus on the observable evidence of deformation, although sometimes we might need more sensitive instruments [like a light lever] to detect the deformation.” Mr. Hull pointed out that that was one of the “rules” of science: “If a simple, consistent explanation would work across several situations, then use the simpler explanation rather than needing to rely on use of different explanations depending on some non-observable characteristic like whether the object was actively or passively supporting the book.” Mr. Hull further validated the work of the students, suggesting “that force could have been defined by incorporating the active/passive distinction, but for reasons like consistency and tying our ideas to observable evidence, the scientists’ conception of force is more like the one our class has derived. Also, we now know that this conception has worked well for scientists for a long time. Like scientists, we will take our present idea of force as tentative and use it until new evidence suggests we might need to revise it.”
The inquiry does not end here. In subsequent lessons focusing on forces on moving objects, students further develop their understanding of force and of the nature and processes of science. The preceding lesson is but one short inquiry allowing students to begin to understand the complex ideas that science has developed related to force and motion.
ANALYSIS OF 9-12 IMAGE OF INQUIRY
This example represents one lesson conducted in a single class period. Nevertheless, it demonstrates how a teacher can seamlessly interweave science subject matter, inquiry abilities, and understandings of scientific inquiry.
Learning Outcomes. Mr. Hull used three learning outcomes from his local school district curriculum and state standards to help him plan what and how to teach. Each of these three outcomes is also found in the National Science Education Standards. First, his lesson provided opportunities for his students to understand and apply the concept from physics of
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forces acting on objects in various states of motion. The students’ prior understandings were challenged by questions about objects and forces in different contexts; this caused them to look for evidence to build improved explanations. Second, he helped his students develop abilities to do scientific inquiry, attending, in particular, to determining what constituted evidence of forces acting on objects in various conditions, and building evidence-based explanations that would apply across different contexts. Finally, Mr. Hull shared aspects of the nature of scientific inquiry with the students and drew on their ideas to show how scientists think and work.
Essential Features of Classroom Inquiry. This lesson includes a number of the essential features of classroom inquiry described in Chapter 2. Scientific questions focused students’ thinking about the forces acting on objects in various states of motion. The students gathered observable evidence to develop explanations and gain a deeper understanding of the concept of force. They also questioned proposed explanations, focusing on the search for observable evidence. Mr. Hull guided the building of explanations from the evidence gathered. At the conclusion of the lesson, he helped the students make connections from their experiences to current scientific thinking about forces and motion.
Instructional Model. The example of Mr. Hull and his students illustrates one way of organizing and sequencing learning and teaching activities consistent with inquiry. Through questioning, Mr. Hull actively engaged his students in thinking about the existence of an upward force on an object at rest on a table. He used student-generated drawings to find out more about their current understanding of whether objects, such as a table or hand, can exert an upward force on an object at rest. Mr. Hull drew on the prior knowledge of the students to pose questions that motivated them to explore whether other types of objects, such as springs, can exert an upward force. The students developed explanations about how a stationary object could exert an upward force. Mr. Hull explained how scientists think about forces and helped the students elaborate their explanations across different contexts. The students critiqued their ideas on the basis of evidence. Through class discussion, Mr. Hull was able to evaluate student thinking and use this information to help structure the flow of the lesson.
In this vignette the teacher clearly guided the inquiry. Yet, stimulated by an initial question from the teacher, students asked their own questions, voiced their concerns, and shared their ideas. They also critiqued ideas focusing on the search for evidence.
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ANOTHER IMAGE OF INQUIRY IN GRADES 9-12
Every year in the spring, Ms. Idoni’s biology class conducts a full and open inquiry. The inquiry takes several weeks of class during the semester, so students have ample time to conduct their investigation. Ms. Idoni begins the inquiry by taking the students on a field trip to an environment where she is relatively certain their interest will be engaged. All year, students look forward to this experience. It is a tradition with Ms. Idoni and the students have heard that it is hard work, but something they will really find interesting.
Earlier in the school year the students have had many opportunities to learn and practice the inquiry skills they will need to conduct a full inquiry. Ms. Idoni has used a series of “invitations to inquiry” (Mayer, 1978), which are short teaching units designed to give students small samples of the process of inquiry. Each sample has a blank the students are invited to fill, for example, the plan of an investigation, a way to control one factor in an experiment, or the conclusion to be drawn from a set of data. Each “invitation” focuses student learning on one or two abilities of inquiry. Participating in the series of invitations over the year has equipped Ms. Idoni’s students to identify questions that can be investigated, design appropriate investigations, gather data, interpret data, consult sources such as the Web for additional information, and draw definable conclusions — all of which will be called on in the full inquiry they are now beginning.
Before starting inquiry, Ms. Idoni makes plans for how to assess students’ learning on an ongoing basis. She will ask each student to keep a journal through the inquiry. Because she is most interested in emphasizing the development of inquiry abilities, Ms. Idoni will have the students organize their journals according to a slightly modified form of the fundamental abilities as described in the Standards. The categories Ms. Idoni will use are:
Questions and scientific ideas that guide the investigation
Design of the investigation
Technology and mathematics for the investigation
Use of evidence to present explanations
Alternative explanations
Conclusions and defense of explanations
As students record their observations, Ms. Idoni will review their journals and ask more specific questions about scientific concepts that underlie their explanations, how technology helps them, what evidence they are collecting, if they have the best evidence and explanation, what other ideas they have heard, and if they have the strongest conclusions.
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Ms. Idoni sets the stage for the field trip by explaining to the students that for most of the year their biology class has studied ideas and conducted laboratories that scientists and educators think that all students should know and experience. Although these experiences provide a foundation, now the approach will be different. They will have the opportunity to study something about the environment that they find interesting. “The field trip will help you decide what question you want to pursue.” This year, Ms. Idoni has decided to take the students to a lake in the city park. When they arrive at the lake, Ms. Idoni asks the students to simply walk around the lake, to observe the lake, and to think about questions that they may be interested in answering. She asks them to record the observations and questions in their journal.
The next day’s activity centers on the students’ observations and questions. Ms. Idoni approaches these discussions with caution. She is sensitive to the balance between sustaining the students’ interest and enthusiasm and the critical elements of a successful scientific inquiry for 10th graders. A critical aspect of successful inquiry is having students reflect on the ideas and scientific concepts that guide the inquiry. Also important is a knowledge base to support the investigation and help students to formulate an appropriate scientific explanation. Students’
current concepts of the aquatic environment will shape, and may limit, their questions and ultimately their inquiry. So, after an initial class discussion, Ms. Idoni knows she will rely on small groups, brief reports on progress, and cooperative learning for the investigations.
Student questions begin with issues such as: Is the lake water safe to drink? Can people swim in the lake? What kinds of plants and animals live in the lake? How have humans changed the lake? As the discussion continues, it becomes clear to Ms. Idoni that the students are most interested in change and stability in the lake and, in particular, the influence humans have had on this environment. It also is clear that students have ideas about how the lake changes: the temperature changes daily and with seasons; there was more dirt since a recent rain; some small organisms could be seen; and, in some places, there were different
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smells associated with the water. Ms. Idoni probes the students about their observations and reminds them to make entries in their journals. What important aspect of the lake do they want to investigate? What kinds of human influences are of most interest? “Pollution” is the term Ms. Idoni hears first and most consistently. She thinks it is essential to clarify the students’ understanding of pollution and in particular the possible sources of human pollution in the city lake. She asks the students to discuss in small groups what they mean by pollution for the city lake.
Over several class periods, they struggle with the issue of normal change, what counts as pollution, and possible human influences. Ms. Idoni lets the students grapple with these issues, which seem to center on one major idea: as living and non-living elements of an ecosystem interact, they change. Any study of changes in an environment, such as the city lake, must begin with an analysis of the patterns of change under normal circumstances. Students realize they have to understand the natural functions of the interactive system before tackling the more complex question of the impact of human actions, in particular, their notion of pollution. At this point Ms. Idoni realizes she already has her final assessment: she will suggest that something has polluted the lake and the students will have to apply what they have learned to this new problem. But, for the time being, she must wait and let the students pursue their questions and investigations.
After hearing the results of small group discussions, Ms. Idoni facilitates a large group review of ideas and helps students identify an overarching question for the class to pursue in the investigation. The class decides on a general question: Is city park lake polluted? If so, how have humans influenced the pollution? The class decides to approach the inquiry by first establishing a baseline of data about city lake and then determine if the lake is polluted. Students realize that many factors affect water quality. With help from Ms. Idoni, they decide
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to organize their work, and so themselves, to focus on three kinds of factors: physical, chemical, and biological. The group investigating physical factors is interested in temperature, color, limits of light penetration, and amounts and types of suspended particles. The chemical factors group wants to learn about pH (which they have measured in various classes in past years and suspect might have something to do with a lake’s “condition”), and amounts of oxygen, carbon dioxide, phosphates, and nitrates. The biological group wants to investigate the numbers and kinds of organisms.
Students decide to design the inquiry as follows. Each group will gather data for a period of two months, reporting all results to the other groups on a regular basis. Each group also will report about their ideas and what their library and computer searches suggest about the potential influence of the factors they are studying on the quality of city lake.
Ms. Idoni is very pleased with the way the class investigation is taking shape. Although she knows the students will still struggle with the question of how to determine what counts as pollution, and especially the human influence, she lets this issue remain unresolved. In fact, knowing it will emerge on its own, she doesn’t bring it up.
Ms. Idoni is especially aware of three things. First, she keeps a mental list of the inquiry abilities for grades 9-12 and notes which abilities the students are engaged in as the inquiry progresses. Second, she recognizes that students are using what they have learned of physical and life sciences earlier in the year, especially the fundamental understandings associated with the life science standard on the interdependence of organisms (see Table 3-5). Finally, Ms. Idoni sees that this entire inquiry is providing ample opportunities for all students to understand several parts of the standard on science in personal and social perspectives, especially those associated with natural resources and environmental quality (see Table 3-6).
As the students begin organizing their group investigations, they easily and quickly recognize that the use of various technologies will improve data gathering and mathematics will improve the summary and presentation of data. For example, they decide to set up temperature probes and record data directly into computers, and to use Hach oxygen test kits, a pH meter, a Millipore environmental microbiology kit, and common items that help them gather samples for examination in the science classroom.
Ms. Idoni schedules periodic meetings in which the students share data they have collected and present what they understand about the influence of various factors. With time, students begin to realize that the
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Table 3-5. Excerpt from Life Science Standard, 9-12
As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of:
Interdependence of organisms
Energy flows through ecosystems in one direction, from photosynthetic organisms to herbivores to carnivores and decomposers.
Organisms both cooperate and compete in ecosystems.
Living organisms have the capacity to produce populations of infinite size, but environments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension has profound effects on the interactions between organisms.
Human beings live within the world’s ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected.
Matter, energy, and organization in living systems
The distribution and abundance of organisms and populations in ecosystems are limited by the availability of matter and energy and the ability of the ecosystem to recycle materials (p. 186).
Table 3-6. Excerpt from Science in Personal and Social Perspectives Standard, 9-12
As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of
Environmental quality
Natural ecosystems provide an array of basic processes that affect humans. Those processes include maintenance of the quality of the atmosphere, generation of soils, control of the hydrologic cycle, disposal of wastes, and recycling of nutrients. Humans are changing many of these basic processes, and the changes may be detrimental to humans.
Materials from human societies affect both physical and chemical cycles of the earth.
Many factors influence environmental quality, including population growth, resource use, population distribution, overconsumption, the capacity of technology to solve problems, poverty, the roles of economic, political, and religious views, and different ways humans view the earth (p. 198).
factors interact. In one discussion, for example, the physical factors team suggests that temperature determines the number and kinds of organisms. The chemical factors team reports that the numbers and kinds of organisms influence how much oxygen and carbon dioxide are present. In one highly energized session, the students realize that an investigation of water quality is a search for relationships
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among physical, chemical, and biological factors.
In the process of data analysis, student teams review their findings, look at ranges of data and trends over the period of study (it is spring), and determine what is appropriate to consider and how to deal with anomalous data. During their group work, Ms. Idoni moves from group to group and asks questions, such as “What explanation did you expect to develop from the data?” “Where there any surprises in the data?” “How confident do you feel about the accuracy of the data?”
After two months, the groups present their data and their explanation of the specific effect the factors they studied have on the lake and if the effect would count as pollution. As students listen to the different groups, they recognize and analyze alternative explanations and models for understanding stability, change, and the potential of pollution in the city lake. They review what they know, weigh the evidence for different explanations, and examine the logic of the different group presentations. They challenge each others’ findings, elaborating on their own knowledge as they help each other learn more about their particular factors. Slowly, they form the view that all factors have to be considered in any explanation for pollution of the lake.
To Ms. Idoni’s surprise and pleasure, the students decide that they want to synthesize the data and formulate an answer to their guiding question. Their observations and explanations continually expand; they find they have to consider factors they did not originally think were important, such as season, rainfall, and the activities of domestic animals.
As they compile all of the evidence and begin the difficult task of answering their question, they realize they must first address the question: “What counts as pollution?” The students decide that they will use coliform bacteria because of what they learn in their reading. The literature points out that water can look, taste, and smell perfectly clean and yet be unsafe to drink because it contains bacteria. This eventually becomes the students’ operational definition of pollution. They learn that coliform bacteria live longer and are easier to detect in water than bacteria that cause disease. Their presence is considered a real warning signal of sewage pollution. If coliform bacteria are not present in city lake, then, the students reason, the answer to their question is that the lake is free of pollution — at least by their operational definition of human pollution.
Working across groups, the class compiles their respective reports and prepares one major summary of their inquiry. They also include summaries of their respective results. The reports are excellent. Students capably describe procedures, express scientific concepts, review informa-
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tion, summarize data, develop charts and data, explain statistical procedures they used, and construct a reasonable and logical argument for their answer to the question, “Is city park lake polluted?” “And, if so, what is the human influence on the pollution?” The class concludes that, even though city park lake experiences variations and changes in many factors, it is not polluted.
For the final assessment, Ms. Idoni presents a new problem and asks each student to prepare a report describing how he or she would investigate the problem. Here is the problem: over several weeks there is a massive fish kill in the lake. Everyone suspects pollution — of some sort. But, no one knows exactly how to investigate the problem. The one thing they have discovered is that coliform bacteria have not been found in the lake. Students are to propose an inquiry that might be used by the City Council to address this problem.
ANALYSIS OF ANOTHER 9-12 IMAGE OF INQUIRY
Ms. Idoni is pleased with the student work and certain that it demonstrates significant learning. Their work has provided opportunities for all students to develop the abilities of scientific inquiry described in the National Science Education Standards — her primary learning goal for the full inquiry. She also realizes that the experiences provided students with the background they need to develop deeper understanding of many science concepts and the connections between science and personal and social issues. Finally, Ms. Idoni uses the experience of doing a full inquiry to review and strengthen students’ understandings about scientific inquiry.
Ms. Idoni thinks the experience is important because it provides students with an understanding of the ways that scientists pursue questions that they identify as important. It also gives students one opportunity to use all of the abilities described for the Science as Inquiry standard in the National Science Education Standards. She knows that for students to develop these abilities, they must actively participate in scientific investigations and use the cognitive and manipulative skills associated with the formulation of scientific explanations.
As she initiates the activity, Ms. Idoni knows that some students will have trouble with variables and controls in experiments. Further, students often have trouble with data that seem anomalous and in proposing explanations based on evidence and logic rather than on their beliefs about the natural world.
Ms. Idoni uses the initial field experience as a way to make the investigation meaningful to students. She understands there are several
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ways that students may find meaningful topics to pursue, for example, current topics in the media, local problems, and personal experiences. She also knows that initially some experiences may not be highly engaging, but active involvement by its very nature has some meaning. Over several years of teaching experience, Ms. Idoni has decided that for a majority of students an initial field trip provides the most meaningful context for beginning the inquiry.
CONCLUSION
Inquiry-based teaching requires careful attention to creating learning environments and experiences where students can confront new ideas, deepen their understandings, and learn to think logically and critically about the world around them. This chapter has suggested some ways to “see” inquiry in classrooms. The next chapter turns to how teachers learn to achieve and assess the wide range of outcomes they strive for in their use of inquiry.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
moon phases
