Regardless of the source of the question, inquiry-based learning requires that students play a major role in answering the question. This can occur through designing and executing controlled experiments, making measurements and observations, or building and testing models. The simple answer is that inquiry methods provide an excellent way to teach science to all students. I have distilled my ideas of excellent science teaching into nine features, which are described below. Along with the descriptions are my thoughts on the ways in which inquiry-based methods are consistent with these features.
Science is taught as a process as well as a body of content.
Science is a systematic process of inquiry about natural phenomena. It is through this systematic process of inquiry that the content of scientific knowledge is derived. When science is taught as a process of inquiry, students learn how to be scientists. When students use inquiry to discover content, they not only learn a great variety of facts and concepts, but they also learn how these are related to each other, and how it is that we human beings come to understand our world and add to the great body of information we call knowledge. The science content being taught relates to students' everyday experiences, capitalizes on students' questions and curiosity, and encourages more questions and curiosity.