Teachers often use words interchangeably when referring to science activities: labs, investigations, experiments, projects, inquiry. In this year’s Science and Children, the focus is on inquiry in the elementary classroom. As noted in the guest editorial Pathways to Inquiry, inquiry is not an analog, either/or process.

Doing inquiry in the classroom requires laying a foundation for students to take more responsibility for their learning. The learner must become adept at using the process skills of science (observing, questioning, predicting, hypothesizing) to make decisions about what questions to raise, which to follow in depth, what materials and science tools to use for various tasks, how to organize data, communicate findings, and participate in discourse.

The spectrum of inquiry activities is based on who has responsibility for the processes: from activities that are totally planned by the teacher with predictable outcomes (assuming that the students follow the directions) to those investigations in which students choose a question and design the procedures, with levels in between. I suspect it’s the “in between” that is challenging for teachers. The articles in this year’s Science and Children have many suggestions, and the websites in the SciLinks collection can help with content questions.

Outdoor Integration show how investigations of seeds, butterflies, and water quality can be integrated with writing. The graphic organizer for writing could be adapted for other grade levels I’m thinking of middle schoolers who may need some help in organizing their thoughts. (SciLinks: Butterflies, Migration) Creature Connections also has ideas for taking learning outside to reinforce skills in observation, inference, and classification. (SciLinks: Endangered Species, Adaptations of Animals, Biodiversity, Ecosystems)
The article Needs of Seeds contains a formative assessment probe to ascertain students preconceptions (and misconceptions) about what seeds need to germinate. (SciLinks: Seed Germination)
What’s the Next Step? shows how to combine teacher demonstration and student experimentation. The teacher demonstration provides some background experience with a discrepant event, and student curiosity is stimulated to pose additional questions to investigate. The examples of student work show that they understand the processes. The discussion and diagrams in What Causes Convection? can be very helpful in understanding the concept. (SciLinks: Convection, Conduction, Convection, and Radiation)
At first, Inquiry in the Heart of a Comet may appear to be an arts-and-crafts activity, but these authors show how the planned and purposeful Comet on a Stick activity helps students to understand the composition of a comet and explain it to others. (SciLinks: Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors)
Ongoing Inquiry and Thinking Inside the Box include activities that guide younger students through inquiry processes. (SciLinks: Nutrition, States of Matter)
The authors of Concept-Based Learning also describe investigations with five stations related to ponds and water quality. The article includes a chart showing the understandings and essential questions that guide the investigations. (SciLinks: Lakes and Ponds, Food Webs, Food Chain, Energy Pyramid, Ecology)
Disease Detectives includes book reviews on “germs” and the activity “Microbe Mania.” (SciLinks: Microbes, Disease)
And check out more Connections for this issue (February 2011). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.
Every classroom activity should relate to your learning goals and be appropriate for the experience level of your students. There are many resources for finding science activities—your textbook, curriculum guide, websites, journal articles (and the NSTA ones have some excellent, classroom-tested examples). Although it’s tempting to use them as is, you’ll need to review them thoroughly to adapt them to the experiences of your students and to determine if you have the proper facilities and materials to conduct them safely.