Running head: peer reviewed journal article 1

Peer Reviewed Journal Article

Misti Neely
Ivy Tech Community College

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Peer Reviewed Journal Article
According to an article by Leslie Atkins and Irene Salter, scientific inquiry is a practice
used to construct a classroom community and build knowledge in scientific ways. It engages
students to perform the same tasks as practicing scientists. Scientific inquiry develops
explanations for physical phenomena through classroom collaboration. They state that scientific
inquiry is created through a progression of ideas, along with experimentation, seeking evidence,
writing procedures, collaborating with others, debating, and making sense of the outcome. This is
exactly what I have been learning in class for the past eight weeks. To me, scientific inquiry is
making sense of the world around us through exploration and collaboration. By working
together, students are able to negotiate their understandings of how things work. Equally as
important students negotiate with themselves and their understandings by reflecting in their
scientific notebooks. This is exactly what the article is mentioning as well! The textbook
Questions Claims and Evidence describes the scientific inquiry process as forming a question,
testing the question, organizing observations, writing a claim, comparing/collaborating with
other students, and reflecting on how their ideas have changed. This is pretty close to the process
that Atkins and Salter stated. However, Atkins and Salter see the scientific notebooks as more
than just a tool to aid in scientific inquiry. They view these notebooks as a way of performing
scientific inquiry. They state that through writing in a notebook you are forming scientific ideas
and engaging in the scientific process.
According to Atkins and Salter, through scientific notebooks students create and describe
their own explanations, ideas, observations, and understandings of experiments. Through the
process of taking notes and keeping a scientific notebook students will retain the scientific
process along with learning how to be a scientist, instead of worrying about getting a good grade.

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The teacher should tell the students that the primary purpose of scientific inquiry is for the
students to learn how to do science instead of learning scientific facts. Overall students will learn
quite a bit of science. The teacher should put the students into small groups and give them
notebook images from famous scientists. The teacher then asks the students to create a list of
things that they notice about the notebooks. This will help show the students what should be
expected of them when they complete their own scientific notebooks. After this, it is time for the
instructor to walk around to room starting discussions and answering any questions the students
have. The instructor should write down a list of observations on the board. The students should
discuss and think about the importance of keeping scientific notebooks to a scientist. Together
the students and the educator should come up with a rubric to be used to grade their own
scientific journals. It is important that these journals show progression of ideas, creativity,
brainstorming, explanations, procedures, observations, and questions that are formed.
In this teaching style of scientific inquiry teachers offer guidance through modeling the
scientific procedure, circulating the room, and leaving sticky notes in their journals. If one were
to pass by a room thats run in this particular manner they may be surprised to see students in
small groups actively engaging in discussions, debates, challenging each others claims,
experiments, and collaborating. They may also notice the teacher allowing the students to do
most of the talking. The teacher would be present walking around to each group offering
guidance when needed, for the most part, this is a student-run classroom where the students take
control of their own education. One may also notice students writing in their scientific notebooks
and excitement in the air when a student finally realizes the big idea.
This matches my idea of good teaching because it gets the students excited about
learning. Good teachers encourage their students to ask questions and create investigations to

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discover the answers. Not only that, but students are also learning through experiments and
research. When you allow students to seek the answers to the questions they are asking you are
creating lifelong learners. Students are excited to discover the truth and to see their claims
changed or confirmed.
According to the National Science Education Standards (NSES) scientific inquiry is "the
diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the
evidence derived from their work. Scientific inquiry also refers to the activities through which
students develop knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas, as well as an understanding of
how scientists study the natural world." The NSTA focuses on the belief that children naturally
want to know about the world around them and do this through asking questions. They believe
that all teachers K-16 should embrace this teaching method and encourage its growth. As a part
of this approach, educators should plan inquiry-based programs, guide and facilitate the learning
process, collaborate with other to receive administrative support, and experience scientific
inquiry themselves through a teacher training program. It is the teacher job to help students
understand how to identify and ask questions that can be answered through scientific
investigations, to conduct the investigations, to gather evidence that answers their questions, to
understand how to analyze data, along with drawing conclusions based on the evidence, and how
to clearly communicate and defend their results to others. Overall students should learn that
scientific inquiry is asking questions about the world around them and seeking out the answers to
these questions. Students see that there isnt a rock solid sequence to the scientific investigation
and steps may be repeated multiple times before a solution is found. Students also learn to be
skeptical of their own ideas and thinking process, through learning that their schemas may

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change and mature. Evidence helps change their perceptions and build their knowledge base.
Overall science is driven by asking questions and reaching a common understanding!
Before reading the article by Atkins and Salter I knew that scientific notebooks were
important to scientific inquiry. However, after reading the article I see in a little more depth the
true purpose behind them, not only for students, but also for an educator. The scientific
notebooks should be used throughout the process not just at the end to reflect. Students really
need time to think about what they are going to write and to see how their ideas have changed
from the beginning. As an educator who is grading these notebooks I am able to see if the
students understood the process or not. I can also see what misconceptions the students had in
the beginning and can see if those misconceptions were changed. Scientific notebooks benefit
everyone.
Through reading the statement by the NSTA I have a greater understanding of the
teachers impact to the scientific inquiry process. I now see that the teacher plays a greater roll
then just circulating the room or grading notebooks. Its is the teacher that creates the inquiry and
guides the entire process. In a way its like riding a horse through the woods. If you drop the
reins the horse may stay with the pack and follow along. However, once they come to an obstacle
the horse will stop dead in its tracks. This is what students do when they arrive at a
misconception and their claim is not supported by the evidence. However, if the rider pulls on
the reins it can control if the horse turns around and starts back at the beginning or just moves
around the obstacle. The pull on the reins is so light that the horse has no idea that it didnt make
the decision itself. This is exactly what a teacher does in an inquiry based classroom. They ever
so lightly guide their students around the obstacles while still allowing the student to believe they
are in control.

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In my classroom I plan to use all of the pieces to inquiry. I myself have always loved
science and exploring new things, along with making discoveries. I am young at heart and I
know that my students are the same way. They want learning to be fun and hands on. Scientific
inquiry allows students to create, explore, and investigate. I want my students to be excited about
learning and I fully believe that scientific inquiry ignites that excitement. Scientific inquiry
allows the students to decide what they want to learn and the teacher is there to help guide them
in the right direction. I also fully plan to implement scientific notebooks into our daily schedule.
Not only do they promote better writing skills but they also measure student growth. I kept a
journal when I was in third grade. Somehow I misplaced it for three years and when I went back
and read it I was amazed at how my schema had changed. When I was a third grader my spelling
was awful, my letters werent very straight, I had horrible grammar, and my writing was huge.
Just in those few years my writing skills had advanced so far that by the sixth grade I could no
longer even tell what my journal had said. My own writing had become ineligible. I also found
that the things that were important to me in third grade were no longer priorities. It is an amazing
feeling to be able to look back on something that you wrote years ago. I would like my student to
have this opportunity to be able to look back on what they had written and see how much they
have grown and how their thinking has changed. This is why I fully support scientific inquiry
and running a class through inquiry based learning.

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References
Atkins, L. J., & Salter, I. Y. (2013). Using scientists' notebooks to foster authentic scientific
practices. AIP Conference Proceedings,1513(1), 50-53. doi:10.1063/1.4789649
Meier, L., Hand, B., Hockenberry, L., & Wise, K. (2008). Acknowledgements. In Questions,
claims, and evidence: The important place of argument in children's science writing (pp.
Ix-x). Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann.
NSTA Position Statement Scientific Inquiry. (2004, October 1). Retrieved March 1, 2015, from
http://www.nsta.org/docs/PositionStatement_ScientificInquiry.pdf