Pursuing Our Questions

Data Collection, Analysis, and Synthesis, and Evaluation

In Phase II, children pursued answers to their questions by engaging in data gathering. They went on field trips, interviewed experts, set up experiments, and followed methodically procedures of inquiry. They predicted, hypothesized, theorized, tested, analyzed, evaluated, and shared their findings. Throughout the investigation, parents were resources for the students. They shared their expertise and contributed related artifacts to study.

Field Work

Children signed up for teams to investigate their five researchable questions.

Each small group drew their prediction of what they thought they would find out before they began their investigation. For example, the roof group predicted how many and what different types of roofs were on buildings around our school. They predicted: pointy roof, a long triangle roof, flat roof, a straight roof and house roof. Then they walked around the school collecting data by counting and making observational drawings.

This learning activity allows for the children to practice careful observation and drawing. A critical element of an investigation is reporting observations and discoveries back to the whole class. The real audience gives the investigators the opportunity to clarify their findings and inform the whole group of their progress. It gives the audience the chance to listen to findings, ask questions, challenge assumptions, and express their own knowledge about the topic at hand. After the roof group completed their walking tour, they reported what they had observed.

AH: The apartment building is flat.
CS: Why?
CO: A flat roof won’t echo. It won’t go into the ceiling and bounce back like our back classroom does at lunchtime.

Children continued to take surveys. The children supported their responses to the question, "Are buildings and houses constructed on rocks, sand or dirt?"

10/23/00

Teacher: EA, why did you think that houses and buildings could be constructed on sand?
EA: Because it is flat.
SJ: It has to be flat. The sand has to be flat for the buildings.
CO: If you dig in the sand…build on the sand, the house or building will sink and when you open the door you can’t because the sand will block it.
C S: It is like quicksand. The house will sink.
Teacher: Well, I think that quicksand is a little different from regular sand.
WJ: Yeah, it is more wet. Like the sand in the ocean. When you walk on it is wet and moves and you sink easy. Quicksand is like that.
Teacher: What happens when you walk on sand?
WJ: Your feet sink.
CO: Yeah your feet sink. The sand moves under your feet so it doesn’t stay flat.
Teacher: So what happens when the workers come and start construction and they start walking on it and putting their metal here and their cement bricks and their wood everywhere? What is going to happen to the sand?
CO: It is going to move.
WJ: It won’t stay flat.

To answer WJ’s question, “What is construction,” the children visited the construction site near the school and talked with the site manager. The children dictated their predictions of how their questions would be answered on a chart.

Field Trip Questions, Predictions and Findings

Children collected their data on the site visit. They each had a clipboard with their question written at the top, a tally sheet with chosen items to count (windows, doors, 2 kinds of roofs, and 2 kinds of machines), blank paper for observational drawings and a shared box camera. Children interviewed the site manager, (some with encouragement) and wrote the answer or drew a picture of something that would remind them of the answer for a later time. They shared their field experiences and compared their findings with their predictions on the chart.

Interviewing Site Manager	Observational Drawing of the Building

On the following day, the children worked on analyzing the data that they had collected on their tally sheets. They interpreted the information and made a bar graph to visually show what they had seen. They communicated the results to the teacher.

Teacher: How do you think you will remember which tally mark you are coloring on the bar graph?
AM: I know. I’ll used pencil on the field trip. I’ll use a marker and put a little dot right on the tally mark so I know I’ve done that one and I won’t get mixed up.
NO: I’m doing that, too.
BG: I sure saw a lot of windows. I know there were even more. But I didn’t mark them all down. Can we add marks, today?
Teacher: This tally sheet was the way for you to record what you saw and counted yesterday and you carefully marked a tally line each time.
WJ: But I know I saw more.
Teacher: Which do you think is going to be the most accurate, counting with the windows in front of you, or counting windows from the building that you remember?
CM: Counting with the windows right there.
WJ: But, I know I saw more windows and pointy and flat roofs.
Teacher: Can you alter the data? What do real scientist does?
AK: Real scientists don’t make up what they see. You have to do your best job when you are looking.

Even after this discussion, four children added tally marks to their tally sheet. The discussion of these discrepancies between findings was a perfect opportunity for the teacher to explain and reiterate the processes of inquiry. When results do not match, researchers must return to the field and gather more data, or design another way to inquire.

Tally Sheet for Data Collecting on Field Trip to Construction Site	Graphing Results

Interviewing Experts

Children sought information from professionals to help answer their questions. Parents came to the classroom and spoke to the children to explain architecture and tools. To further answer NC’s question, "What kinds of tools do you use,” a parent agreed to bring his tools and talk to the class about the names and uses of the tools, and what kinds of repairs he does with them. Students asked specific questions. They predicted how they thought he would answer their question. Children made observational drawings of the tools. The observational drawings were much more sophicated because the tool was right next to them on the table. Observational drawing involves critical thinking and editing as their eyes travel back and forth from the object to their paper.

An Observational Drawing of a Drill

Experiments

Two science students from the University of Illinois came to the classroom weekly to help examine simple machines and strength of materials. Using a piece of paper for a bridge, children counted to see how many block cubes would fit on the paper before collapsing. Children explored different variables by trying different weights and colors of paper, and paper that was folded.

One child wondered about the wire in cranes that is used to lift up heavy objects. He tried to research the question on the Internet and asked the site manager on the field trip. But he was not satisfied with the answer. The wire is connected to a pulley, which is connected to the cab of the crane. He thought that the wire would snap when lifting heavy objects then would crash into the cab and kill the person. There was a lot of disagreement about this. Some thought that the crane was too strong, that the wire was too strong or that wire was string, rope, etc. They spent many days arguing these points.

One group of five girls did an experiment with a cement block, using all of the materials that the children thought did the actual lifting in the crane. These included streamers, string, yarn, rope, wire, and cable. They also took out two bricks, one red brick and one cement block. They predicted which item would support the blocks and which would not and then drew what they thought would happen. The girls gave predictions for which items would or would not lift up the blocks. The only two things that supported the bricks were the skinny wire and the cable. The girls then wanted to know what was in the wire and cable. The teacher cut it open and they found three small skinny wires wrapped inside the red rubber outer covering. They were very excited by this and took this information to the class.

Some children investigated incline plane as ways to get from one floor to another. During field studies and experiments, children made observations and drew what they observed. By the end of the project, they had a collection of drawings. (Phase II Gallery) Drawings provide opportunities for children to demonstrate greater attention to details, to think about what they are drawing and to edit previous ideas. They also provided a basis for discussion as children articulated what they drew.

The winter Open House was approaching and it was an opportune time to culminate and share the construction project with parents, family and friends. They moved on to Phase III of the project as they planned to share what they learned about construction.

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