Learning By Doing

From a very early age, students are naturally curious of the world around them. At some point, this natural wonder and curiosity morphs into the desire to know the “right” answer. It is my job as a science teacher to spark this natural wonder again in students once they reach middle school and I do this through inquiry-based learning. Students learn best by doing and answering their own questions. It is the job of the science educator to create meaningful opportunities for students that guide them towards answers and understanding.

The National Science Education Standards defines scientific inquiry as the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. Children are little scientists. Always observing their surroundings and conducting their own experiments based on experience and lingering questions. At the Episcopal School of Knoxville, we help create and foster opportunities for students to answer their own questions. By acting as real scientists do, students are able to experience and do science. Inquiry-based lessons create the environment where students can explore on their own and dictate their own learning.

In our middle school science classrooms, students create and participate in hands-on activities to help enrich their science knowledge. Within a unit, students will begin with a general lesson that taps prior knowledge and extends basic understandings of the topic at hand. Students will then move into hands-on activities that build on prior knowledge and help answer questions or gaps of understanding they might have had. Working with classmates and explaining learning to others, helps cement understanding and creates a broad knowledge base for our students.

At the Episcopal School of Knoxville, we have numerous opportunities for our students to explore and enrich their science knowledge. Our science classes can often be found roaming along the school nature trails, creating dichotomous keys for our native trees, testing water samples from the natural spring on campus, and hiding butterflies in the classroom to test the principals of natural selection and predator/prey relationships. Structuring class in such a way that provides opportunities for questions and conversations is what makes our science classrooms special. Our students question as scientists, research as scientists, communicate as scientists. By fostering scientific thought, we hope to create an informed community that will help answer questions and solve problems.

Today, we heard from ESK Middle School science teacher Wendy Teffeteller and her thoughts on the importance of play based on the recent article titled Inquiry-Based Learning in the Science Classroom from Edutopia.