What Should the Inquiry Experience Be for the Learner?

SCIENCE is not only about answers, it is also aboutquestions. The way we frame questions, searchfor answers to them, and then connect the emerging knowledge to what we already know, is scientific inquiry. Inquiry has been closely associated with the scientific method; however, to be effective for learners, it must be more than a prescriptive formula to follow. Ideally, inquiry involves: 1. Exploring events in nature until a meaningful question emerges 2. Probing the material world directly for an answer 3. Arguing the validity of that answer to an audience. As an instructional technique, inquiry learning is not new. Biological Sciences Curriculum Study pro-vided excellent guidance in its ‘‘Invitation to Enquiry’’ materials in the 1960s, and recent reform efforts [National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996), Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy (AAAS 1993)] have reminded us once again of the pivotal role that inquiry plays in science education. In this article, we describe a model of inquiry learning that is basic, but that ties together the fundamental processes of seeking, identifying and substantiating knowledge by learners. The model has three phases: developing a question, answering the question, and arguing the answer. Each of the phases is important, but perhaps none more so than that of arguing the answer, for it is here that students reconstruct their thinking, marshal the evidence they have gathered, and make logical connections between an existing body of knowledge and the conclusions they have drawn. Following the description of the model are two exam-ples of how inquiry learning can be fostered by a close student-teacher relationship. Phase I: Asking the Question Questions that are handed down from teachers as problems for students to solve lose much of thei