Inquiry!

To help the students get a deeper understanding of inquiry, I shared Mrs. Heins' and my Appalachian Trail experiences.

First, we learned about the four stages of inquiry.

We learned that the first inquiry stage is Immersion, where our brains are like sponges soaking up new information.

When Mrs. Heins and I started thinking about hiking on the Appalachian Trail, we soaked up as much information we could by reading books and watching videos.

The next stage is Investigation, where we search for answers to our lingering questions and record our research so we don't forget it.

Mrs. Heins and I had to research the kind of equipment we needed and figure out what part of the trail we wanted to tackle!

After we Investigate, we Coalesce our learning by thinking about Big Ideas and sorting/categorizing our learning.

Mrs. Heins and I got together and practiced hiking in the woods by her house and discussed the research we had done about the equipment for the trail.  We even practiced with our equipment!

Finally, we Go Public with our learning by sharing our new schema with others and creating visuals to help us teach.

Mrs. Heins and I went on our hike!  We hiked most of the Georgia portion of the Appalachian Trail!  We were so proud!

This past summer we visited the trail again and hiked in the Smoky Mountains.

How have you used inquiry in your life?  What did you do research in order to learn?