About this resource
This activity is designed to show students the organic, non-linear nature of inquiry. The goal of the activity is to get students thinking, talking, and asking questions about something completely unrelated to what they started thinking about at the beginning of the connect and wonder phases.
Curriculum & Standards
Related General Curriculum / Common Core Area
English, Social Studies
What students will do
As students begin to brainstorm ideas, invite them to develop solutions in follow-up lessons as well. For example, a student who thinks that the school isn't welcoming to new students might suggest that the school implement more activities and games during recess and lunch. A student who thinks that more kids should walk to school can make a plan for more crossing guards or a "buddy" system.
Students will be able to develop new lines of inquiry and investigation based on a problem, observation, or fact.
Resources Needed
- Chart paper
- Notebooks
Lesson sequence & procedures
Hook: Explain to students how the discovery of some of their most common household objects -- post-it notes, playdoh, and penicillin, were by complete accident. The inventors didn't know that that's what they would make, they were trying to solve another problem and realized they had a solution to a question they weren't asking.
Today's activity is to help students branch out from an initial problem, observation, or question to discover new areas or solutions to the questions they aren't asking.
Direct instruction: I show students an observation that I had about how the sidewalk on a local street comes to an abrupt end. I wrote that observation in the middle of my chart, and then I wrote the observations and knowledge that I received from conversations with peers on a web out from my central observation. I wrote down whom I talked to and what additional knowledge they gave me on my chart. From here I can model what I learned from peers, including that the sidewalk ends when it meets a town border.
Guided practice: Set up three observations, problems, or questions for students to see if they can add knowledge or questions to through talk in small groups. Suggested initial prompts:
- An observation about lunch/recess at school (school issue)
- An observation about town recreation policies (municipal issue)
- An observation about a state voting law (national issue)
Have students talk to each other to see what they can add to these observations by asking a question, providing additional information, or describing personal experience.
Independent practice: Encourage students to develop observation, problems, and questions of their own that group members can add to.
How learning is assessed
Wrap up/reflection: Ask students what questions and information they learned at the end of today's activity that they didn't have at the beginning of the class period.