National Parks

A recent example of my Guided Inquiry work has been with a unit for Year 4 students on National Parks in Australia. This subject is close to my own heart as I am a bird watcher, bush walker and generally outdoors person. I have found that if you have a passion for an area of inquiry, then it helps to make it a great topic for Guided Inquiry!

We began our ‘Open’ session with photos of my trips and guessing what might be packed in my backpack. It included erecting my tent in the library space, which led to lots of excited discussion. During the ‘Immerse’ stage the classroom teacher and I had gathered a wide range of material including pamphlets, brochures, books and videos. We planned a round robin of immersion activities and began to find some interesting ideas that students wanted to investigate further. Co-incidentally Sydney was covered in a smoke haze from controlled burning in National Parks, so this made a great bonus for an inquiry. Our ‘Explore’ phase included a phone hook-up with a Park Ranger, which led to further questions and answers.

During the ‘Gather’ stage we used an Inquiry Log. I always find this stage the most challenging with each young students pursuing their own inquiry. Students were given a choice of ‘Create/Share’ activities, however most constructed models of imagined National Parks, incorporating much of the information they had gathered throughout the process. ‘Evaluate’ enabled students to self-evaluate the process as well as the classroom teacher and I to evaluate whether we had achieved our planned outcomes.