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SYEFEST Testimonial, Millbrook, New York, 1995 By Jude Curtin, Millbrook Ecology Institute The sun was shining. There was just a hint of fall in the September air. 23 fourth graders were hunched over their white dishpans, excitedly sorting thought their samples of forest litter. So began a series of lessons designed to have students generate questions, create investigations, and ultimately, come up with answers. Lesson 1: Noticing Details My experience has been that children need to be trained to be good observers. My first lesson has children examine a sample of forest litter, sorting every item they discover, recording their results in science journals. Lesson 2: Classroom Discussion: Open vs. Closed Questions:Many generic samples of both types of questions are generated, first by the teacher, then by students. Lesson 3: Creating Questions about Forest Litter Samples Students were told to generate as many "interesting" questions as possible, questions that they would really like to know the answers to. Students are reminded to apply what they have learned about open versus closed questions. No further instructions about the nature of the questions was given at this time. After students have been given time to generate questions, each student was given the opportunity to contribute their favorite question to the class.
Lesson 4: Discussion: How Would You Find the Answers to the Above Questions? As a class, we went question by question, trying to determine how we could find the answers. It became apparent that there were basically three types of questions: Those that you could answer by conducting an investigation, those you could answer by doing some book research, and those questions you could not easily answer. Students were told that while all the questions were valid and interesting, the ones we would be interested in would be the ones answerable by conducting an investigation. It became apparent that comparative questions would best suit our needs, while "why?" questions were the least suited to being answered by investigation. As a class, students created an actual investigation, designed to answer one of the above questions. In our case, through the democratic process, we chose to create an investigation to determine if worms show a preference for damp soil over dry soil. Lesson 5: Conducting the Investigation Working in six research teams, students conducted the above investigation, sharing data to allow for replication. Based on their results, students were able to reach their own conclusions about the investigation. Lesson 6: Schoolyard Questions Now that students were guided in the process of generating questions, creating an investigation, and reaching conclusions, using the very controlled sample of forest litter, I broadened their research field, by now including the entire schoolyard as the basis for generating questions. Students were taken on a tour of the schoolyard, notebooks and pencils in hand, with the instruction to generate questions of interest. Students were reminded to try to emphasize questions which could be answered through investigation. Students were also told to voice their questions aloud, since I have found that that seems to stimulate questions from other students. Throughout this "question walk," I was modeling questions as well. Lesson 7: Classroom Discussion: Schoolyard Questions Once again, students are asked to contribute their favorite questions, we discuss which ones can be answered by conducting an investigation, and finally, as a whole class, we create an actual investigation.
Lesson 8: Independent Practice: Creating an Investigation (Student Assessment) As a way of assessing student achievement, students were asked to create their own investigations based on one of the above questions. Students must:
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