Trees fascinate children and help them spark their curiosity and wonder. Our Tree study built upon our students’ interest in trees to help them explore science and social studies. We focused on helping the children develop an understanding of the characteristics of trees and their role in our natural and man-made worlds. With this study the children were introduced to inquiry process, which involves reflecting on previous knowledge, developing questions, planning, making observations, collecting, analyzing and interpreting data. One of the best aspects of our inquiry-based study about trees was that the children had the time, the space and the resources to become deeply involved to their investigations.
Just like it happens with all the inquiry projects, we started our study on trees by exploring everything we already knew about them. We reflected on our prior experiences while discussing as a whole group all we know about trees:
- Beginning The Study
Just like it happens with all the inquiry projects, we started our study on trees by exploring everything we already knew about them. We reflected on our prior experiences while discussing as a whole group all we know about trees:
Of course it is always important to see and touch everything we talk about. That’s why we found it a good idea to go on a tree hunt around the school where we have seen lots of trees, and look at what these trees look like.
Before going back to the classroom, we sat on picnic tables and recorded our observations. Each of us drew a picture of what he/she noticed.
Back to the classroom, we discussed about our observations. Many of us mentioned the sizes of the trees we had seen and tree parts. We connected our observations to our collection of tree parts in class. We created rotation centers and took some time to observe all the items we had collected through magnifiers.
Group 1: Maren, Margaux, Cynthia, Perla
Group 2: Aya, Evlampia, Ramez, Yiming
Group 3: Zaid, Yahya, Afroditi, Tatziana
Group 4: Jana, Lily, Yusuf, Hussein, Ege
Slowly slowly we started getting interested in learning more and more about trees. We were ready for another exploration. This time we went on a tree hunt to look up close at what there is under the trees. We investigated the ground and collected items that we found underneath the trees.
We sorted the items in groups: rocks, sticks, leaves, roots, and soil.
Then we strained the soil to clean it, and we mixed it with water. What do you think that we got?
If you guessed “soil paint”, then you are correct. Working with natural materials can add to the fun of making art. We used leaves from our collection and with those leaves and the soil paint we created a picture of a tree.
We were everyday observing the tree parts we had collected in many ways. We had found some leaves and branches, but we also had some parts that we were not sure what exactly they are called. That was a great opportunity to pose our first question that led our investigation on trees. Gradually, we added more questions:
That’s how we began to explore trees.