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Early Childhood

Inquiry-Based approach to teaching ecosystems/habitats/biomes

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Ashalenia Graham Ashalenia Graham 985 Points

Hi all!

I am a student and am currently studying the inquiry-based science approach to teaching. I just wrote a lesson on ecosystems and I had a lot of trouble finding an inquiry-based approach to teaching this.  I know that my students would natually be curious of this topic but I had trouble coming up with hands on activities we could do to help guide them to their own understandings of this topic.  

Any ideas? 

Lindsey Wolfe lindsey wolfe 840 Points

Hey, I recently taught a mini-unit on ecosystems to 4th graders. I as well used the inquiry based approach with my studnets. Due to the pandemic affecting our state I had to conduct these lessons over zoom meetings however, I still stuck to an inquiry based approach with my studnets. What I did to first get my studnets thinking and curious about the topic we created an anchor chart together. I posed multiple questions to my studnets about what we were going to be covering for example: what is an ecosystem? what are Abiotic and Biotic factors? and How do humans impact our ecosystem? This was just a quick way to get them thinking and hearing their ideas about the topic. Next I had used a virtual field trip to a reinforest and desert biome, I also took pictures of the ecosystem that we currently live in. However, if you are in a classroom you could have your students select an ecosystem and then create a diarama of that ecosystem. This will be a fun way to get them engaged and working together to create their ecosystems. You could also have a different ecosystem each day in your classroom and redecorate your classroom which this is a lot of work but I have changed the theme of my classroom for multiple science lessons and the studnets really enjoy it. This would be a fun way that you could create hands on activities and they can explore the rainforest, or desert in the classroom and allow their curiosity to gudie them around the room to help learn about different ecosystems. I hope this helps! 

Whitney King Whitney King 630 Points

Hi! I'm not sure if you are looking for a specific grade, but I created a lesson for kindergarten learning about habitats. We unfortunatley didn't get to finish due to school closures. We did look at the school garden and then showed pictures of a rainforest to the students. We were going ask the students the types of animals they saw in the rainforest and the animals that might live in their garden. The students were going to discuss why these animals lived in one and not the other, and let the students talk with each other and come with answers on their own and come up with questions to explore. We chose the animals because that is something that most students find interesting. This could easily be adapted for an older grade since they would be able to read books or explore websites on the topic to come up with possible answers and questions to explore about the habitat or ecosystem. the older grades could also look at more complex features besides animals. 

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