Don't spread it!

Hello blog readers! This week on History in the Making I will tell you about inquiry lessons! This was by far the most difficult lesson I have tried to write. It took me several days just to come up with/find an idea. After much consideration and research I decided to do a lesson on how a disease spreads through herds and why it's important to identify the sick animal to remove from the herd.

Inquiry lessons themselves take some finesse to facilitate. When doing an inquiry lesson you want the class to be as student centered as possible. The students should inquire into the information instead of be instructed in. This increases there critical thinking and is very pertinent to everyday situations. Also with inquiry, students should be using some type of method to find their answer. This method will likely follow the scientific method. The "secret ingredient" or twist was that we were required to use some type of scientific equipment. At first I looked at this as a burden but have since completely changed my view. The scientific equipment made the lessons more hands on and interesting.

For my lesson I had my "students" all grab one vial of water. There were to be 6 students including myself so I had prepared 6 vials in all, however one person was absent from lab so I had to adapt and I had 2 of the vials. All 6 vials were half full with water except for vial 3. This magical vial had substituted some water for vinegar. I then had the students exchange liquids with 2 people by them putting half of their solution into another persons vial, and then that person giving half back, therefore mixing the liquids. I then used the "disease tracker", which was a pH indicator, to see which vials had been infected. It turned out that only 2 animals in the herd had not contracted the disease.

The lab went fairly well as far as a lesson can go. Per usual my clarity needed some work. I find it difficult to instruct my peers as though I would instruct high school students on a lesson. However, I enjoyed my lesson and the others I had sat through that day. I see inquiry lessons being very beneficial but equally as difficult to facilitate. I have high hopes that with continued practice and use of them in the classroom I will be able to better conduct these lessons.

Thank you for reading!!