This document discusses building scientific inquiry skills from infancy through elementary school. It outlines how inquiry can look different at each developmental stage, from developing vocabulary and encouraging questioning in infants and toddlers, to more sophisticated investigations led by school-aged children with teacher scaffolding. The document provides examples of inquiry-based activities for different ages, and emphasizes creating an environment where children can explore, ask questions, and investigate concepts through hands-on experiences. National and state standards for scientific inquiry are also summarized.

1. Infants through Elementary
Building Scientific
Inquiry

2. Robbie Polan
Early Childhood Childcare Liaison
Austin I S D
rpolan@austinisd.org
512 414 7487

4.  What is Scientific Inquiry?
 National and State Standards
 Blooms Taxonomy
 Roles & Responsibilities
 Science Materials Matrix
 Creating the Environment
 Let’s Explore!

5. What is
Scientific Inquiry?
How does this look in a diverse program
which includes infants through school age
children?

6. Building a Foundation for Inquiry
* Develop Vocabulary
*Encourage Questioning
*Allow Time for Investigations
that are Authentic
*Provide Rich Tactile Experiences

7. Let’s Begin at the End
What do we expect
our children to know
by the end of 2nd
grade?

8. Texas Science TEKS
The study of elementary science includes
planning and safely implementing classroom
and outdoor investigations using scientific
processes, including inquiry methods, analyzing
information, making informed decisions, and
using tools to collect and record information,
while addressing the major concepts and
vocabulary, in the context of physical, earth, and
life sciences. Districts are encouraged to
facilitate classroom and outdoor investigations
for at least 80% of instructional time.

9. National Science Standards
The standards on inquiry highlight the ability to conduct
inquiry and develop understanding about scientific
inquiry. Students at all grade levels and in every domain
of science should have the opportunity to use scientific
inquiry and develop the ability to think and act in ways
associated with inquiry, including asking questions,
planning and conducting investigations, using appropriate
tools and techniques to gather data, thinking critically
and logically about relationships between evidence and
explanations, constructing and analyzing alternative
explanations, and communicating scientific arguments.

10. Blooms Taxonomy

11.  Provide materials that encourage
exploration and questions throughout
the classroom
 Plan learning experiences that are
conceptually connected
 Look for spontaneous opportunities to
support scientific thinking
Our responsibilities and challenges

12.  Help children answer their own
questions through inquiry
 Provide opportunities for
communicating scientific ideas verbally,
through drawing, writing, graphing…
 Ask open-ended questions and plan
open-ended activities that encourage
children to describe, compare/contrast,
predict, and explain
Our responsibilities and challenges

13. The Inquiry Cycle
1 Engage children’s Interest.
2 Prepare to investigate.
3 Investigate.
4 Prepare to report.
5 Report.

14. Inquiry Continuum
-Dr. Karen Ostlund

15. Rousseau believed that children
learned from their curiosity and not
from teacher intervention.

16. Throughout the day, does your
environment allow children to….
 Make observations using multiple
senses
 Compare and contrast the object
with other things they know about
 Encourage collaborating and
sharing ideas

17.  Encourage questioning and
exploring any unknowns
 Engage in deeper thinking and
learning, the children should not be
focused on one right answer
 Are they having fun?

18. Science Centers in Pre-K

20. Science Materials Matrix

21. Now, let’s explore!

22. Our Youngest
Learners

23. Infants and toddlers are natural explorers and
scientists. They are actively learning about the
physical and social world every day.

24. Three and Four
Year-Olds

25. “Preschool-aged children bring their sense of
wonder and curiosity about the world. Whether
watching fish in an aquarium or using a
flashlight to make bubbles, the child is engaged
in finding out how the world works.”
-Kathleen Conezio

26. Scientist of the Week
Scientist of the Week

27. Exploring Water
Exploration leads to lessons in water flow and
then force and motion.

28. School Age
Children

29. School-aged children are much more
sophisticated and are able to direct their inquiry
but may need scaffolding by the teacher.

31. Outdoor Explorations
Living and Nonliving

32. Advice from Frances and David Hawkins
• Start with nature.
• Seize the moment.
• Become a researcher alongside children.
• Become a researcher alongside adults.
• Think of your classroom as a laboratory.

33. Expect to be impressed!
Science provides opportunities
for children to show off their
thinking, not just facts they
know.

34. You can teach a student a lesson
for a day; but if you can teach
him to learn by creating curiosity,
he will continue the learning
process as long as he lives.
-Clay P. Bedford