Engaging in inquiry provides opportunities to help children develop ways of understanding the world around them. The processes of science provide a way of finding out information, testing ideas and seeking explanation. The products of science are ideas which can be applied in helping to understand new experiences. However, the seamless interweaving of process and content depends on both the teachers' and the students' experience and confidence in doing inquiry. Teachers find that they often move back and forth, emphasizing process skills and scientific content, bringing one into focus for critical examination while the other remains in the background.
Teachers have to help students develop skills to be good investigators.
With ample practice, these skills develop and grow over time. Although inquiry teaching demands a different relationship between teacher and student than more traditional methods, it requires a high level of organization, planning, and structure, both by the teacher and the students. In essence, a classroom environment that is supportive and conducive to doing inquiry must be consciously developed. The teacher must create a climate for doing inquiry. In order for inquiry to be effective, a teacher must lay a foundation in which students can begin to take more responsibility for their own learning.