The first step in the science fair project was to pick a topic. My teacher already had a topic in mind: chewing gum and which flavor lasted the longest. She proposed the topic of chewing gum to the class and started asking them questioning about gum, to spark their curiosity. Eventually, my teacher got them to wonder about which flavor of gum would last the longest. According to what I have been learning in class about inquiry, this was a very structured inquiry. My teacher already had a question in mind and lead the students to that question. To make this a more open, less structured inquiry, the students could have come up with a question from their own wondering, instead of having a question that was already formed. Our question for the stem project was "Which flavor of gum will last the longest?"
After generating this question, we did some research about gum. My teacher found some information about the origins of gum and what gum is made of. We shared this information with students. We told the students that gum was used thousands of years ago and that it was not always flavored. We told them about the first people to flavor gum. We also told them that gum was made out of chicle originally, but later made synthetically with rubber, explaining what synthetic meant and discussing the pros and cons of synthetic verses natural gum. After allowing our students to hear this material and participate in the discussion, they generated a hypothesis about which flavor of gum will last the longest. There were four flavors of Extra gum to choose from: Sweet Watermelon, Polar Ice, Peppermint, and Classic Bubblegum. Our class took a vote on which flavor would last the longest. Each student voted one time. Overall, the flavor gum that had the most votes was Polar Ice. We asked some students why they picked Polar Ice as the flavor that would last the longest, and their answers were surprising. One student said that the gum was made of ice and it was cold, so it would take a longer time to melt, making the flavor last the longest. Honestly, I was flabbergasted by this response. Not five minutes before we took the vote, we discussed that gum was made of rubber and even named some examples of rubber in their everyday life. I was shocked that the student said that gum was made of ice. Most of the students seemed to agree with this reasoning, so that became our hypothesis "Our class thinks that Polar Ice flavor of gum will last the longest because we think that it is made of ice which takes a long time to melt". I was confused and frustrated as to what to do with this hypothesis. We told the students that gum was made of rubber and they still had a misconception about it. I did not know whether to tell them that gum was not made out of ice, or just to let it go. Since my teacher did not correct it, or make a big deal out of it, I said nothing, but I still felt uneasy about this. One thing that I could have done to draw some physical connections as to what gum is made out of is to bring in actual rubber, or rubber items. I could have had the students manipulate the objects, allowing them to experience rubber, how it feels and what it looks like. I also could of had the students handle gum, and draw parallels between gum and rubber. We could have chewed gum, letting them make observations about how it felt in their mouth and if it felt anything like rubber. These experiences would have given students a better understanding of gum and rubber.
After forming a hypothesis, we generated a materials list. My teacher generated most of the materials, having the students simply copy the list. This is also leaning towards the highly structured side of inquiry. To make it more like an open inquiry, my students could have generated the materials list, leaving the teacher as the facilitator, making sure that they do not leave out any important materials.
The next step was deciding how we were going to collect the data. Again, my teacher decided how we were going to collect the data, and the students just participated in the investigation. We did not give them any choice in how to collect the data, we just told them what they were doing. Again, this format was very structured, far from the open inquiry. To make this closer to the open inquiry and less structured, we could have allowed them to come up with a way to collect the data, or at least given them some choices in how to collect the data. Allowing the students to decide how to collect the data allows them to think about the best way to measure the data. They could have to use their critical thinking skills, deciding which way would work the best and why. However, we decided that we would have four trials, and four groups, allowing each group to try each flavor of gum. Each group had 4 students and each student got a half piece of gum. The teacher would time how long each flavor lasted for each student. When the flavor ran out of the gum, the student would raise their hand and the teacher would record how long the flavor lasted for using a timer. We did this four times. After gathering all of the data, I averaged the times for each flavor for each trial. I displayed the data on the board and allowed the students to tell me which flavor lasted the longest based on the data. They were able to come to the conclusion that the Polar Ice flavor of gum lasted the longest because it had the longest time.
I tried to discuss why it is important for scientists to do many trials of the process, why it is important to write the procedure of the investigation, and why scientists communicate their results to expose students to the nature of science as we went through the investigation.
Overall, this Stem Fair Project was very structured. My students did not have much choice when it came to the choices that were made. Most, if not all, of the choices were made by the teacher. My students would have invested more in the investigation if they were able to choose a topic from their own curiosities, and if they were allowed to have choice in how we collected the data. They would have had the opportunity to practice their problem solving skills and participate in an inquiry where they were in charge. In my future teaching, I would teach inquiries that have more student choice so they are invested in the process and are able to make decisions for themselves, thinking like scientists.