Study On The Design Of Scientific Inquiry Activities Derived From Life

Scientific inquiry has become the main theme of contemporary science educational reform.In China, the traditional science education only focus on transmission of knowledge and ignores cultivation of students’skill and scientific literacy, which has already received attention from education academia in recent ten years. Nowadays, scientific inquiry has become the main theme of the basic education curriculum reformation in China. Carrying out scientific inquiry activities is an effective way to implement scientific inquiry. Scientific inquiry activity is an important way for students to learn science, thus, it has an important implications for the research about design of scientific inquiry activity.With the deepening of education reform, lots of curriculum specialists and educators actively are involved in research and practice of science education, they have already produced a large number of research results, however, majority of the research results are about the meaning of scientific inquiry, basic features, strategies of scientific inquiry teaching and so on. Some educators have already focused on practice, they designed some inquiry activities appropriately with specific subject content, some mature designs have already published. In the design of scientific inquiry activities, some researchers have pointed out to explore the inquiry material as much as possible from normal life. Most of the design from former researcher has emphasis on heavy and difficult in teaching, the designs from life are quite rarely. Currently, the number of design cases which are original and deriving from life and highly systematical are quite small. This paper shows a design process about a scientific inquiry case which was from normal life, and Summarizing some process should be followed when researchers design a scientific inquiry case from normal life. Meanwhile, this paper discusses a situation about different inquiry activities which should emphasis on special inquiry elements, aim to provide some references for other researchers when face the development and design of similar case.The paper firstly describes the research background and research questions, answers several question such as "Why conduct scientific inquiry activity design""Why select the material from life to design" and "Why choose the fried dough sticks to design the inquiry activities ".(Chapter I) The paper uses literature method to introduce scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry related elements, at the same time, scientific inquiry activity design and related researches on this material were reviewed. Not only laid the theoretical foundation for this inquiry activity design, but also clarified the reference from relevant research.(Chapter Ⅱ)The paper uses the experimental method to study fried dough sticks, and presented measurements of mass and volume, at the some time, analysis oil temperature and water in the dough sticks which are the factors of fried dough stick expansion, and obtained the fried dough sticks changing laws on different oil temperature and moisture, construct a physical processes about fried dough sticks expansion.(Chapter Ⅲ)After detailed analysis on the research material, the core issue from this inquiry material can be submitted in four question:"why was the fried dough sticks expansion ","the factors affects expansion"," how to interpret the expansion law under different moisture"," how to interpret the expansion law under different oil temperature". Based on the difficulty and strata of those question, author select different inquiry question for junior high school students and university students. Teaching seventh grader around this question about why was the fried dough sticks expansion,and, teaching third grade students in university mainly focus on four questions:why was the fried dough sticks expansion?Why expansion differently? How to design experiments to testify? How to interpret the expansion curve under different oil temperature? The paper analyzes the real classroom situation which is from junior school and university. After those analyzes,author improved inquiry activities design to make the whole inquiry activities around some initial questions/those initial questions are" have you ever seen fried dough sticks"," What do you observe from the cooking fried dough sticks "," how to explain the expansion of fried dough sticks-conjecture "," how to interpret the expansion of fried dough sticks-evidence and interpretation "," how to interpret the expansion law under different moisture "," how to explain the expansion law under different oil temperature".(Chapter IV)Finally, combining with the research process of this material, the paper summarizes the following conclusions:(1)、Inquiry activities that designed from life material can connect life and scientific knowledge; they are beneficial to the student’s understanding of life and science. The material of life is complicated, when design the inquiry activities we must be good at simplify the problem.(2)、When using material of life design to be scientific inquiry activities, we should follow certain process. Specifically, the designing process should be divided into three stages. The first stage is doing study on material; the second stage is Preliminary implementation of the inquiry activities. The third stage is forming a complete inquiry activity plan.Doing study on material is the basis of inquiry activity design.it also is the primary problem of inquiry activity design; the preliminary implementation of inquiry activity is an effective way to optimize the design of the inquiry activity, it makes the operational of inquiry activity designed stronger; The final form solution process is highlights the value of the case.(3)、The implementation of the inquiry activity is limited by the space、time and the other aspect, the paper point out that inquiry activity is no have to focus on all the elements, when doing the design of inquiry activity,the teachers should flexible to use fully exploration or part to exploration. Whether the inquiry activity should include all the elements, it is depending on the specific characteristics of inquiry activity.(Chapter V)...