DO YOU FOLLOW
THE INQUIRY CYCLE?
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An inquiry-based project follows the Inquiry Cycle. This means the project is designed with a specific objective of finding something out — e.g. “Can wattle seeds grow in space?” — as opposed to an open-ended activity, e.g. “Exploring gravity.” The emphasis of an inquiry-based project is on process and learning (rather than quickly finding out the answer) and engages with a topic over an extended period of time, i.e. at least several weeks or months. This provides the time for children’s hypotheses, questions, and concepts to be explored via exploration, discovery, and reflection.
Inquiry-based STEM projects build upon the interests of children, which means they could stem from a question they ask, an observation they make, or be inspired by one of their specific interests. It’s critical for the children to experience a strong sense of agency throughout the project and to be at the heart of developing questions to explore, plan, implement, and document the project. In contrast, educators are there to support, facilitate, and witness.
You can use Little Scientists’ Inquiry Cycle below:
As you can see in the Inquiry Cycle above, an inquiry-based project should follow this structure:
Step 1. Select a question sparked from the children for your project to explore.
Step 2. Explore children’s prior knowledge and their ideas and hypotheses related to the topic.
Step 3. Children conduct research and experiments.
Step 4. Children observe what is happening and are encouraged to describe what they are learning.
*During the course of your project, you will likely return to Step 2, 3, and 4 multiple times as the children learn new information and form new ideas and hypotheses to explore.
Step 5. Children are supported to document their observations and results.
Step 6. Discuss the results and findings of the project.
The award-winning project “Can we save Humpty Dumpty?” by Glass House Early Education Centre (QLD) provides an excellent example of following the Inquiry Cycle.