We attend an IB school. We love inquiry. This is our community project. We wanted to help our community by solving the Lanternfly problem. We started with a questions. What we wonder and what we already knew. We read books and researched on the computer. We wrote the problem and reported our findings. We took action and killed them. We tally how much we killed in one week. We mapped where they are and where they are going. We presented our findings to guest visitors. We took feedback and reflected on our decision to kill them. We talked about other ways to help our community.

Our 3rd grade classes, during a Think-Pair-Share, generated a list of the physical and human characteristics of Nepal. Next, they wrote out “I See” statements on sticky notes and then added them to our inquiry wall on the Geography and Culture Anchor Chart. Then they examined the images of the countries from their Plane Ticket to find out more about the physical and human characteristics of those countries.

Students had $20 to budget for a party using one of the lessons from the unit. I open up a store with little cards that they receive with the items they decide to purchase. Then they draw a picture and glue their items on it. Finally students write a paragraph that with a topic sentence, details and conclusion. Their paragraph should include things they chose to buy, something they would've liked to buy but couldn't afford and finally if they had any money left over. I then put these out in the hallway on our bulletin board for parents to see during parent conferences in the fall.

The students had choice in their product. Some chose to write a letter while others chose to create a slideshow in Seesaw. They wanted to address the "injustice" of not being allowed on one part of our playground or the need for more water fountains in our cafeteria.

My students loved this project! Each student explained a holiday that their family celebrates and some of the traditions they participate in. Highly recommend!

The students chose an artifact from the cultural area that they researched and made a replica out of clay, wood, paint and other materials. In order to inspire and educate our broader community, these replicas were displayed at our local library along with a photograph of the original artifact and information about the cultures of origin. We heard such positive feedback from the library on the interaction of the community with the projects-looking, reading and learning from the student writing and the maps and images included alongside the student work. Having an authentic audience was important to creating quality work.

After the election, our fifth graders were disheartened by the low voter turnout at the local, state, and national levels. To address this, we integrated our writing unit with the inquiry project, creating brochures to emphasize the importance of participating in elections at every level.

Students researched early settlements looking for examples of cooperation and conflict. They created Mind Maps showing what they learned. Walden School, Deerfield School District 109

My second grade students LOVED this unit. We kicked the unit off with the QFT, and students did a gallery walk as they annotated the different invention posters. They shared their noticings and wonderings. You can see their “innovative” vocabulary sheets where their understandings of the term evolved throughout the lesson. We finished the unit with a biography presentation on an innovator of their choice!

We used the map for the first 5 modules, and then for module 6 my students decided that they want to make a game board that goes with a country Question & Answer book they made (from each of the countries in Module 3). They have looked at models (game boards) to determine what they want to have in their game, and we just came up with Team norms. Next, we will split into groups to create parts of our class game.

Students started by making a self portrait. Then, they created flags from their family's country of origin. They also wrote and drew about a family tradition in the speech bubble. Once all the individual pieces were created, we worked together to decide on a mural background and then painted it in teams.

As a final inquiry project, students considered hallway behavior that they felt could be improved upon. They designed signs that they thought would promote safe and respectful behavior in different areas of the school.