A Beautiful End to a Scientific Inquiry in Grade 1

So we’ve just gone through a wonderful inquiry. We’ve been looking at how we view things through scientific eyes. It’s a lot about skills and concepts. One of the more important concepts of this unit is ‘Function’. (If your a PYP school this sounds familiar). What is the function of thinking in a scientific way? Why and when do we think this way? Yes this is a process. Yes is this a cycle. We often end up with more questions after we go through a process of scientific thinking. It’s almost an inquiry cycle.

The big skills were:

1. Observe carefully in order to gather data

2. Use a variety of instruments and tools to measure data accurately

3. Use scientific vocabulary to explain their observations and experiences

4. Identify or generate a question or problem to be explored

5. Plan and carry out systematic investigations, manipulating variables as necessary

6. Make and test predictions

7. Interpret and evaluate data gathered in order to draw conclusions

8. Consider scientific models and applications of these models (including their limitations

It was great to see the learners come up with a question, make a hypotheses, figure out what they needed to do (procedure) – what data to gather and how to organise it. They weren’t finished yet, what about the conclusion and further investigations? The @grade1class held a mini science fair where they had to explain the process to real people. Older people. Parents. Peers.  They were fantastic.

And whats even better? The kids felt so proud of their work they shared their efforts with the world on their collaborative blog Grade 1 Rock Stars. Thats global connections and confidence.

Here is a sample of what we came up with in the @grade1class in a short video while explaining our experiment. (video put together in collaboration with students and assistant teacher Ms Sari)