My physical science students have finished their recent project on chemical changes, in which we spent more time than usual on background research and procedure writing. I feel that most of the goals for this assignment were met: the students seemed to think more deeply about what was going on in their projects, tried harder to make an experiment that may not have been done before, and wrote extremely good procedures (though it took quite a bit longer to do). The procedures were an amazing improvement over past work, so I plan on dealing with this issue earlier in the semester in the future. The experiment itself was somewhat disorganized in spite of this- I had two groups who planned on bringing their own supplies, and had three days over which to bring them, but still managed to forget important pieces of their experiment and had to change experiments at last minute. I'm not quite sure what to do about this issue.
My other physical science class finished an inquiry about forces, and I'm still seeing improvement in their work. A major focus for this class will be displaying data in a way that makes it clear to readers what was being measured.
My goal for the next set of inquiries is to keep up the strong background research, and also to budget time for revising and re-experimenting in light of new data. Too many of my students feel that as soon as data is taken that the experiment is over and can be forgotten.
What if you ask the students to problem solve the dilemma about missing supplies? What was the real reason the students didn't bring them -- did they promise more than what they could deliver or were they just unorganized? Let's hear what they think...
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