Its time for our Inquiry Lesson!
We decided to do a "Whats in the bag" activity for our inquiry lesson, but first we reviewed material from our direct instruction lesson.
To do so, we had a Review of Planets chart to do so. As a class, we each talked about which planet had what characteristics and made sure the students were marking down their chart as it was on the board so they would have the correct information when they did the activity.
We also reviewed the scientific method, step by step. As we showed our powerpoint, we had our own bag to show the class what they would be doing when they received their bags. I think we spent a little too much time reviewing the scientific method because for the most part the students knew it. If we cut down time on that, we would have had more time to do the activity.
We made a Tellagami, featuring Alien Fred, who told the 4th graders that the sun blew up and mixed up each inner planet. He needed their help to figure out which planet was which!
We put the students into four different groups, for each of the four inner planets. Each teacher went and worked with one group. The students were instructed to use all of their senses to guess what was in the bag. They then had to use that data and form a hypothesis about which planet they had in their bag. Before beginning, they were given a packet to fill out their answers.
The group I worked with had Venus as their planet. In their bag, there was a hot pack, cotton balls, rocks, two small apples, a few other items to represent Venus. The bag went around the table so they could all examine it a few times and then I asked then what planet they thought it was based on what they felt. They were all so certain it was Mercury, so they were instructed to form their hypothesis based off of that and write the items they believed were in the bag.
After writing down their observations and hypotheses, I furthered their thinking by asking what characteristics were in their bag that some planets didn't have. This really made them think and some students realized that Mercury was both hot and cold, but they didn't feel anything cold in the bag. At this point, time was running low and the group was split: some thought it was Mercury and some thought it was Venus.
I explained to them that this is the same process scientists go through and sometimes scientists find out that their hypothesis wasn't proved correct and that that's okay.
Each of the groups were able to share their results with the class!
I believe this lesson was successful because the students really got to use what they learned the previous lesson about the planets to figure out which one they had in their bag and they had so much fun doing it!
Our inquiry day ended as fast as it came, and our group was truly sad to be done teaching the 4th graders.
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