Inquiry Strategies
for the Journey North Teacher

Planning Science Investigations

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Questions to Help Students Plan Investigations
You can employ the following types of questions when students are setting up their own investigations (e.g., tulip experiments), describing how they or other scientists might set up a study to answer a question, or reflecting on scientists' experiments. Change the wording (see first example) to fit the situation in which you're employing these.

  • What are you trying to find out? (What were the scientists trying to find out?)
  • What do you already know or think you know?
  • What's the best way to answer question?
  • What kind of data (e.g., observations or measurements) will you collect?
  • What variables/factors need to be considered? (If appropriate, How can you make it a fair test?)
  • What would you look for?
  • What evidence would support your hypothesis/explanation?
  • How might you organize and communicate your data and results?
Planning Science Investigations Links