Teaching Science Inquiry

Science Inquiry is a step beyond ”science as a process,”  where students learn skills, such as observation, inference, and experimentation.  Students need hands-on experiments where they make their own discoveries at all grade levels.  It is important for teachers to not give students answers during inquiry lessons, but to play the role as a guide or facilitator during lessons.  Teachers can do this by asking students more questions about the lesson. Questions should include the students senses.  What do you see, smell etc.  After lessons, teachers should help guide a discussion about what the students discovered. Why they think certain things happened during experiments?  Did discoveries differ in different groups?  Students should have a journal to collect data and be given opportunities to retest experiments.  Most of all, students should be engaged in their own learning process and have fun.  Engaging students in inquiry helps students develop an understanding of scientific concepts, an appreciation of the nature of science, and the skills necessary to become independent learners about our world naturally.

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