Having students design their own methods regarding data collection during a lab may help them formulate appropriate investigative procedures. The authors use a modified gallery walk to develop science skills. (Contains 3 figures.)

Off-road motorcycle racing and ATV riding. Gardening and fishing. What do these high-adrenaline and slower-paced pastimes have in common? Each requires soil, and the texture of that soil has an effect on all of them. In the inquiry-based lessons described here, students work both in the field or laboratory and in the classroom to collect soil…

This is the story of how a typical middle school lab was transformed into an open-ended inquiry experience through a few small, but very powerful, changes. By allowing students to follow their own questions, the classroom filled with enthusiasm and students learned much more about photosynthesis, respiration, and the scientific processes. The…

To confront some of the challenges faced by teachers beginning to implement Standards-based inquiry activities in their middle school classrooms, learning coordinators and teachers selected an inquiry-based set of courses and created a District Science Curricula Scope and Sequence, which overviewed the major units and showed teachers and parents…