Inquiry Circles

OVERVIEW

Work continues on team Inquiry Charts as learners add additional information from a different resource, such as a book, website, or eBook.

PROCEDURE

Each italicized statement below contains suggested wording the teacher may choose to use for the lesson; additional teacher actions and considerations are in parentheses.

Before Inquiry Circles

1. It is time to get into our inquiry circles. You will be with the same team as yesterday, but we will rotate the science roles. (Assign roles at your discretion and have the Equipment Directors gather the Inquiry Chart for their team).
2. You have already answered many of your Inquiry Chart questions. Use your Inquiry Chart to determine what questions still need to be answered.
3. As you look for answers to your questions, you will practice your roles as scientists. As scientists, you will make sure to record your findings and your sources carefully on your Inquiry Chart.

During Inquiry Circles (20 minutes)

1. Today you will use a different book, website, or eBook to find answers to the question you’re investigating about your plant group or add information to a question you’ve already answered. (You might choose to show or project the sample Inquiry Chart as a guide.)
2. Remember, you have anchor charts to help guide your thinking. Do not forget to use them while in teams. (Refer to all the mini-lesson anchor charts used to date, which should be posted in the classroom where learners can easily refer to them.)
3. The Lead Scientist will guide all inquiries for the day by picking which question(s) will be answered. The Data Scientist will record all source information and the answers to your inquiry questions on the Inquiry Chart.
4. Remember, it is important to record where you found the information (source) on the Inquiry Chart so that you do not plagiarize. (Remind your learners to record the title and author for texts and the title and URL for websites or videos.)
5. (At this point, teams might have information under multiple questions and from multiple sources. You may need to remind teams that information in the same row is from the same source and information in the same column pertains to the same question. One source might answer multiple questions.)
6. Everyone should help find the answers to the questions online and in texts. (Remind learners how the Inquiry Chart will organize their progress.)
7. My role is to help guide the inquiry circles, but I expect you to work as a scientific team to solve your problems together. (While teams are working, walk around the room to facilitate as needed.)

After Inquiry Circles (10 minutes)

1. As we conclude our inquiry circles for today, each team will have a chance to share the information they found related to their questions, what the team accomplished, and what literacy strategies the team used. The Lab Director will lead the discussion about today’s results. What has the team learned about its plant group? What problems did the team encounter? How did the team resolve those problems? Did the team use a reading strategy? Which one and how did it help? What new questions does the team have? (After you have allowed the teams to gather their thoughts, have the Data Scientist share with the class. Try to encourage teams to share a variety of things—you do not want just facts about plants, just reading strategies, or just cooperative learning strategies.)
2. (After all teams have shared, thank them for their hard work, and point out any excellent behaviors that you observed. If you saw an outstanding example of using a reading strategy or collaborative work, explicitly point it out. If you notice any problems in the teams during the lessons, take a moment to point them out, and explain your expectations for all future inquiry circles. Collect all Inquiry Charts or have learners put them in their normal classroom place for ongoing work so they can easily access them.)

Guided Science Investigation

OVERVIEW

Learners begin their investigation into plant structures with their first observations. The teacher can expect to spend a little more time today laying the groundwork in preparation for the four days of observations.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

What do I want to know about plant structures? What information do I need to answer my question? What structures are present on my live plant? How is it similar to or different from the plants in the photographs?

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR THE TEACHER

By studying the fossil record, scientists believe plants first appeared on land about 500–450 million years ago. The fossil record of plants is not as abundant as that of animals because plants decompose quickly. But spores, seeds, stems, leaves, roots, and other plant parts that are covered by sediments before they decompose can form fossils such as imprints or petrification (like petrified wood). Trace amounts of carbon or plant tissue in rocks and in animal waste can also give scientists evidence of plant life.

Bryophytes, which include nonvascular plants such as liverworts, hornworts, and moss, first appear in the fossil record about 500–470 million years ago. These nonvascular plants do not have a water-transport system or well-developed stems and roots. Bryophytes can absorb water and nutrients from water that flows over the outside of the plant. For this reason, mosses and their relatives typically grow in damp habitats. However, some bryophytes can also survive in deserts and even in the extremely low temperatures of the Arctic tundra.

The climate on Earth at the beginning of this fossil time period (which spans over a 100 million years) was warming up after ice sheets had covered the Earth for millions of years. The fossil record shows new organisms appearing in the seas. By the end of this time period, the climate becomes colder and glaciers form again, causing sea levels to drop and some shallow seas to dry up. Some of the earliest land plants had adaptations that allowed them to survive when they were no longer surrounded by water. However, many species died off due to several extinction events caused by environmental change.

NOTE: As children move through their investigations on different plant groups, it is important for them to make their own discoveries and explanations about what they observe. The teacher can provide limited information as described in the lessons. After the children complete all their observations, they will analyze their data on Day 10 to make sense of how plant structures changed over time in response to a changing environment. At that point, the teacher can provide additional information to fill in the gaps or for clarification.

PROCEDURE

Engage

1. Hold up the live specimen so all can see and announce, Today you will use this live specimen to begin your science investigations on the structures of plants.
2. Remind teams that, in the previous class, they developed a question they wanted to investigate about the structures of plants. Ask them to find that question in their science notebooks. If they have more than one question, they need to decide as a team which one they will investigate. Allow 3–4 minutes for them to agree on a question.
3. When ready, distribute one copy of the “Plant Observations” booklet to each team. Ask the Data Scientists to record the team name or number and the question they are investigating in the appropriate spaces. Remind them that this same question will apply to all the plants they will make observations on.
4. Explain that they will be using this booklet every day to record important information from their investigations. Tell them they will do 4 days of observations. Review the instructions on the cover of the booklet.
5. Remind learners that they have an expert from each plant group on their team.
6. Next, instruct the teams to open the booklet to the second page. Review the information they will need to record (drawing, labeling, answers to questions, etc.), and point out the information you will be providing them.
7. Let them know that information about the plant environments the fossil plants lived in and the name of the group of plants will be given after their daily observations. Assure them that you will give them time to include this in their daily work.
8. Remind the teams that they will begin their investigation by making observations on this first live plant specimen. (Hold up the moss again.)
9. If learners ask what the specimen is, let them know that you will reveal what the plant is and what plant group it comes from after their observations. If the “expert” on mosses identifies it as such, let him/her know you will validate after the observations.
10. Holding up the bag of photos (or projecting a digital sample), tell the teams that they will also examine these images to compare them to the live Add that the plant images show representatives from the same group of plants that the live specimen belongs to. Explain that the fossil images included are of real plants that lived millions of years ago and are related to the live plants they are investigating. Emphasize that teams should look for similarities and differences between all of the plants, including the fossil. Remind them that the morphology chart is a good tool to use.
11. Explain that scientists use what they learn from text information along with data collected through observations and measurements as evidence when trying to answer questions and make explanations.
12. Tell them they will need to work as a team to make careful observations and to provide all the data required in the “Plant Observations” booklet. Remind them to use the science language they are learning in their writing.
13. Suggest the option of having different team members working on different parts of the daily work (e.g., someone can do the illustrations, another can do the labeling or document the leaf morphology, others can work on answering the questions).
14. If teams need more space to write, they can use the back of the pages in their “Plant Observations” booklet or their science notebooks. This can include information they learn from discussions with the teacher or from each other, or additional questions to investigate during inquiry circle time.
15. Ask if there are any questions before proceeding. Remind them that they have an expert on their team who is investigating this plant and can provide information from the work in inquiry circles.

Explore

1. When ready, Equipment Directors should collect 1 live specimen, 1 bag of plant images (or electronic access), and 1 bag of materials for their team. Point out the tools they have available for use in their materials bag.
2. Review the safety rules for plant observations.
3. Let them know they have 20 minutes for their investigation. Remind them to work as a team, with each team member doing a part of the work. They can decide as a team who does what.
4. As the teams work, navigate between them to offer guidance or ask open-ended questions, such as, What question is your team trying to answer? What do you notice about these plants or their structures? What things do they all have in common? How are they different?

Explain

1. When time is up, ask the Data Scientist from each team to share the question their team is investigating and a brief explanation of what the team discovered today.
2. If not addressed, ask, How was the live plant you observed different from plants in the images? How were they the same? What plant structures were present? What did you learn from the fossil image? Accept all responses, but do not correct them. (On Day 10, a review and more information about all the plants groups will be discussed.)
3. Tell the class that the live specimen they examined today is a moss and belongs to the group of plants called bryophytes. Write bryophytes on the whiteboard and ask learners to write it in the correct space in their “Plant Observation” booklets. Explain that bryophytes are the closest living relatives to the first land plants found in the fossil record. Early bryophytes lived in aquatic environments; as water flowed over the surface of the bryophytes, they absorbed water and nutrients. Bryophytes include liverworts, hornworts, and the moss they examined today.
4. Share that the time period when bryophytes appear in the fossil record was as early as 500 million years ago. However, the plant fossil record for that time period is poor because plants had no rigid parts, were tiny in size, and had simple structures. Add that the fossil image in the bag is an example of a compression fossil, which means that the plant was flattened or deformed as a result of being buried in the rock. Because it was deformed, it is hard to identify it; however, scientists believe the fossil image was most likely a fossil liverwort.
5. Explain that the fossil record also provides evidence that, at the beginning of this time period, the climate was warm and wet, providing a damp environment in or near water for plants to live. Allow time for learners to add this information to their booklets.
6. Conclude by noting that millions of years later, the climate became much colder and massive glaciers form. With so much water frozen into glaciers, sea levels were much lower and some shallow seas dried up completely. Some plants no longer surrounded by water adapted in ways that allowed them to survive. Tell the children that they will learn more about this in the next class.

Elaborate

1. Pose the question, Can the “experts” who are investigating moss during inquiry circle time share any other information about mosses? Accept all responses.
2. Remind learners that they can use inquiry circle time to make notes about any new information that is shared and to look for answers for any new questions that came up during the investigation.
3. Instruct the Lab Directors to collect and store all of the materials used today.

Evaluate

1. Did learners communicate their written or verbal observations effectively?
2. Did they include any information from their work in inquiry circles?
3. Are learners correctly using science language in their communications, either written or verbal?

Expanded Standards