Prior Knowledge Inquiry-based learning is most effective if you can determine what your students already know about the subject. Several days prior to doing this activity, take your students on a series of one-minute field trips around the school and its campus to observe and record their observations of wind. Have your students use all of their senses to describe wind.
Good inquiry is based on exploration of materials, observation, collection of data, and reflection.
A journal provides a medium through which the process of inquiry can occur. After a number of one-minute field trips have been completed, students should begin to look for patterns in these observations. If so, record them in the journal. After you feel confident that the students have had ample opportunities to describe wind individually in their journals, ask them to share their descriptions and record the group's best thinking so far on chart paper. Exploration Introduce the following demonstration within the context of your students' observations.