Is it inquiry?

[ammermana]

I am a teacher, and one of my students wants to do the project about fingerprints being hereditary (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure).

I think it's a cool prjoect, but we are really requiring a scientific INQUIRY process. Do you think this counts as one? Is there a variable?

Thanks!

[Ultra]

Ammermana,

Thank you for using the Science Buddies fora. Also, thank you for devoting your life to improving the lives of future generations.

Regarding the project's conformance to the principle of scientific inquiry: from my understanding, this project meets the criteria. The student is asking a scientific question and conducting research to answer it.

The project has variables, (are the subjects related? y/n; do their fingerprint types match? y/n) but it is not an experiment because the independent variable (if you can call it that) is not quite manipulated – or, more importantly – applied as a treatment. This project is a correlational study.

Here are the articles I found on scientific inquiry:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-s ... uiry-based
http://www.justsciencenow.com/inquiry/

I hope that I have helped answer your question. If you have further questions, please feel free to ask.


Thank you,

- Ultra

[AmyCowen]

As Ultra (one of our team of student mentors at Ask an Expert) noted, there are, indeed, variables in this science project. We don't tell the student what the variables are because learning to identify those variables is part of the process of doing a science project. The presence of the table in the procedure can be helpful for students as they think about the variables in the project.

From Science Buddies' perspective, this project does meet the needs for a project demonstrating science inquiry. A great deal, however, depends upon how you are defining the project requirements for your students.

Does this project involve a student physically altering something the way they would the quantities of a chemical or the number of coils in an electromagnet? No. But is it inquiry science? A case can be made that it is.

To look a bit more closely, let's look at one of the articles Ultra linked above (http://www.justsciencenow.com/inquiry/). We see the following:

The National Science Education Standards state that "inquiry is central to science learning."

These standards point out that students engaging in science inquiry will demonstrate the following behaviors:

Describe objects and events.
Ask questions.
Construct explanations.
Test explanations against current scientific knowledge.
Communicate their ideas to others.
Identify their assumptions.
Use critical and logical thinking.
Consider alternative explanations.

In this project, a student will engage in all of these behaviors while doing the project:

• Describe objects and events: people have fingerprints, not all fingerprints look the same
• Ask questions: Do related people have similar fingerprints?
• Construct explanations: I think yes/no because of xyz.
• Identify their assumptions: If my assumptions are correct, then I predict that if I look at the fingerprints of related individuals I'll see ____ versus seeing ____when I look at the fingerprints of unrelated individuals.
• Test explanations against current scientific knowledge: I actually do the looking, categorizing and data analysis (this is the experiment).
• Use critical and logical thinking: I compare the data analysis results to my prediction. If they match, I discuss why and if that makes sense in the context of everything I know.
• Consider alternative explanations: I suggest further tests I could do to test my assumptions.
  If the results and predictions don't match, I discuss what my assumptions were and how they could be wrong. I talk about my new assumptions. I suggest further tests I could do to extend my new-found assumptions.
• Communicate their ideas to others: All of this is communicated via presentation, display board, or however you prefer your students to share their inquiry experience.

Real world science today uses manipulation (physically altering variables), correlation (looking at existing data for patterns that are informative about our assumptions), and observation (looking at the world around us and generating data which can be analyzed for patterns and assumption testing). These are all incredibly important tools for scientists and are all valuable inquiry skills for science learning.


I hope this is helpful information and helps you think about your student's project and about projects that don't involve "manipulation" but still offer students room to do science inquiry.

Amy
Science Buddies