Carrot Inquiry--Part One

CARROTS!  CARROTS!  CARROTS!

At our school, we are blessed with a beautiful nature center. 

We are even allowed to have our own classroom garden plots. Last spring, my class planted carrots and field corn.

Wanting my students to get a taste of the inquiry process, I thought a teacher-led inquiry about carrots would be a wonderful place to start. 

First, I shared the book Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens.  It is a funny story about a lazy bear and a cunning hare, which indirectly introduces children to parts of plants.

Following the story, I brought my class out to our nature center.  I asked them to tell me what they noticed in our garden plot.  Many noticed the corn right away and a few noticed leaves (from the carrots). One student even shouted out, "Carrots!"

Next, I asked them how they could find out what plant the leaves belonged to.  A few started bending down and pulling on them.  This proved to be harder than they thought.  Soon enough, however, the first person discovered a carrot and pandemonium ensued! The look on the child's face was priceless.  Soon, all the children were frantically trying to pull carrots out of the ground.  When it proved difficult for some, classmates offered tips and assistance.  It was wonderful to see this display of teamwork, a skill often underdeveloped in our current educational system.

The next day, I read the book I Wonder by Annaka Harris.

This a wonderful story about what it means to wonder. One of my favorite quotes from the book is, "It's okay to say, I don't know... When we don't know something, we get to wonder about it!"

I asked my students to tell me what the do know about carrots, and we came up with this list:

From there, I asked them to tell me what they wonder about carrots.  I made a web with from their thoughts.

Knowing that identifying parts of plants is one of our kindergarten science standards, I had the students identify where they were in relation to the learning goal--a 1 meaning they didn't know much about plants; a 2 meaning they new some parts, but not all; a 3 meaning they could name all the parts of a plant; and a 4 meaning they could name all the parts and tell what they do.  This was the first time we had talked about learning targets and how to think about where we are in relation to them, so I had to walk a few students through the process.  In the end, our chart looked like this.

With the students' questions in mind, I went home and mapped out possible activities and resources we could use to find answers.  I included books and videos as well.  My map looks like this:

Finally, on the back of my web, I highlighted all the state standards I thought I could cover during this inquiry.

This week, the students will engage in activities which will allow them to find answers to their questions.  In my next blog, I will share pictures of what we discovered and created, and examples of problems we solved.