Inquiry Tools and Resources

Tools and Resources

As you begin your new year it can be hard to remember all the great things you learned in Summer PD or heard about last year. I thought that I would post a few resources that many teachers have found helpful.

Planning

Not everything that you do in the classroom will be a large inquiry project. In fact, most of time activities and lessons will focus on one skill in the inquiry process. However if you are trying to plan out a longer project don't forget about the Buck Institute that has a tremendous amount of resources. In much of our PD we spend a lot of time gathering ideas and resources from them. One resource that might be helpful in planning is the project planner or you may want to consider using the project template that Megan. Sarah and I created and shared in many PD sessions.

Wonder

There was a tremendous amount of dialogue last year about teaching students how to ask good questions. Many teachers have found the question starter grid to be helpful when trying to get
their students to ask questions that will yield more than a "yes" or "no" response. This is a nice tool to post in your classroom and refer to on a daily basis.

Investigate

This year we have a new database called ScienceFlix that can be accessed from the library website. You can use this database as a launching point for Inquiry or to specifically address the "investigation" stage of inquiry. There are videos, leveled articles, links to websites and experiments

that students can access on a wide variety of science topics.  Don't be afraid to have students develop questions on a topic in the classroom and then investigate the answers at home using the database. Students have been given the username and passwords for the databases, but I am happy to share them again if they are needed.

Remember, there are lots of great databases on the library website that can be used to help with the investigation stage.  I am always happy to lead or assist in instruction on how to use these resources.

Assistance

Hopefully some of these resources will help you to get started in your inquiry instruction. I encourage you to reach out to me whenever you are working on inquiry skills, as this is a large part of my curriculum and expertise. I am happy to help plan lessons or I can simply be an extra set of hands in the classroom as you navigate through the stages of inquiry with your students.