Inquiry Work Contest
Share a moment of inquiry from your classroom for a chance to win, and join a national showcase of elementary classrooms. Open September 28 to October 23, 2026.
So much of the inquiry work happening in your classroom never gets seen outside it. This year, it can! A student work sample, an anchor chart, a quick video, a notebook page, or a lesson artifact all count.
Submit to be entered to win this year's prizes, including a new Best Video category.
You don't have to make anything. Just capture what's already happening.
Entries can be messy, in-progress inquiry work of any kind. The work is already on your walls, your desk, and in your students' folders.
- Anchor charts: Half-finished, marked up, mid-lesson. We'd rather see one you're still adding to.
- Student work: A claim still being revised, a source annotation, a drawing. Draft or final, either works.
- Classroom video: A discussion, a debate, a student explaining their thinking. Phone footage is perfect, under three minutes, just make sure we can hear it.
- Photos: Sticky notes everywhere, students mid-conversation, the wall of questions.
- Planning docs: How you set the inquiry up, what you'd change, what surprised you.
Did we mention prizes??
New prizes this year, with a category for classroom video.
- Grand Prize: an inquirED backpack, a $50 Bookshop.org gift card, and a feature across our newsletter, LinkedIn, and the showcase.
- Best Video (new this year): the same package as the Grand Prize, for a teacher who catches a classroom moment on camera.
- Standout classrooms: we'll recognize entries from across grade levels, feature each one in the showcase, and send prizes to the strongest submissions.
- Every teacher who enters: a printable "Inquiry in Action" certificate to give your students.
Inquiry Work Gallery
Share your work with other teachers.
Teachers across the country use the Inquiry Work Gallery to see what inquiry looks like in a classroom like theirs and to borrow ideas worth trying. Check it out.
Explore the gallery >>Enter the contest
It takes about two minutes and one piece of work.
Add your classroom to this year's showcase. Submissions close October 23.