If you’ve ever felt like a lab was just a recipe for your students to follow, without much to discover, you’re the perfect candidate for integrating inquiry learning in your chemistry classroom. Inquiry based learning in chemistry is all about helping your students to think and act like scientists. The point is to get them asking questions, writing procedures and drawing conclusions from evidence. And obviously the time in the lab is the best time to “be a scientist.”
But “inquiry” is one of those admin-loved education terms. It gets thrown around with “differentiation,” “data,” and “homogeneous grouping.” But does admin even know that there are four main types of inquiry learning for science classes? My guess is no. So they should probably stop throwing around the term like it’s confetti. (No shade to confetti.)
Each type of inquiry learning has its own place in your chemistry classroom:
1. Confirmation Inquiry
In confirmation inquiry, students already know the expected outcome before they begin. The goal is to confirm a known principle or relationship using a familiar procedure. It’s the perfect confidence builder (making it one of my favorites)! It helps students to connect what they already know in real life to chemistry. I love this in my Factors that Affect Solubility Lab. My students obviously know that stirring is going to help a soluble solid dissolve in water. But seeing it in action helps to make what I’ve taught them in class make a bit more sense.
Or in my Law of Conservation Lab, (available in my Full Year Chemistry Lab Book, as well as the Mini Lab Book) students learn the Law of Conservation in class and test it in the lab. They crack a glow stick, react vinegar and baking soda, and water with an Alka-Seltzer tablet. In every test they conserve matter, just as expected.
Confirmation inquiry is great for introductory labs or something your students learned in years’ past but are reviewing. I like to think of it as a confidence builder. Activities like these help to reinforce new concepts before moving on to something more complex.
2. Structured Inquiry
In structured inquiry, students don’t know the outcome yet, but you still give them the question and the procedure. Their job is to carry out the experiment, collect data, and make sense of the results. This is the type of inquiry most chemistry teachers already use, whether they realize it or not. Students explore an unknown result, but the process stays manageable and safe. Structured inquiry is more than likely what you’ve used for most of the labs you’ve done in your class.
As a young teacher I didn’t always feel confident that my students were going to write up a good procedure that was safe enough. I relied heavily on structured inquiry. An excellent example of this is my Elephant’s Toothpaste lab. The students are given an entire procedure, as well as pre and post lab questions. Students test for the heat flow of the reaction and write a really nice meaty conclusion paragraph. The questions help to guide their conclusion, and it comes out really great. Especially when you include the lab guide, How to Write a Chemistry Lab Report, that you can get for free, right here. It’s perfect for everyday labs and building up the basic lab skills your students need to head off to college.
3. Guided Inquiry
In guided inquiry, students are given the question but have to design their own procedure to find the answer. This step is where curiosity really starts to shine. Students plan how to collect data, decide what variables to control, and determine how to analyze their results. As students are working, you can guide them with probing questions to get them to the right answer. Now I’ll be honest, I don’t use this one very often. For me, it’s a safety thing. When I have some simpler labs with basic materials, I’m much more willing to “cut student loose” and let them get to work solving a problem. This works really well for students in your honors classes, or where your students are academically strong and could use a challenge. Honestly, it even works well for your more loud and rambunctious classes. I find that kids like that often need “a project” to keep them from going crazy stuck in a desk. Plus the collaboration you’ll see as they work out the problem is stellar.
These are seriously SO EASY to integrate into your repertoire. If you’re working with digital copies of the lab before running copies, just cut out the procedure. (Make sure to paste it back just in case you don’t want to do it as a guided inquiry lab next year.) If you have a pdf that you can’t edit, or a printed copy passed down from a veteran teacher (I LOVE hand-me-downs) just run copies with a bit of white paper taped over the procedure section.
If you’re nervous about trying this, do it with a low maintenance lab that doesn’t include a ton of chemicals. You can read about 15 of those “almost” chemical free chemistry labs here to learn a bit more. Unless your students are very well versed in safety and you’re comfortable with the situation, I’d stick to something lightweight. No Bunsen burners or corrosives in my guided inquiry!
4. Open Inquiry
Open inquiry is the ultimate level of student independence. Students develop the question, design the procedure, and analyze the results on their own, just like professional chemists do. It’s exciting and empowering, but it can also feel chaotic if students aren’t ready. Open inquiry works best once they’ve had lots of practice with the other three levels. I’ve done this once or twice. The easiest way to do it? A science fair project. That is unless you have the students answering a specific chemistry question. Then that’s a bit more like a split between guided and open inquiry.
If you’re interested in a science fair project, you check out my Student Science Fair Planning Guide. It’s a great option if your students are a little confused on where to start. Otherwise, the open inquiry is great for capstone activities, enrichment projects, or your project based learning curricula. The time I taught project based chemistry the students needed a lot of guidance, and this wasn’t a good fit for them.
It’s a lot easier to figure out which type of inquiry chemistry activities are best for your classroom once you’re in it. When you know your students and what they’re capable of, it’s a smaller best, for sure. And if you’re a little uneasy about getting started, I’d start simple and work your students up to open inquiry.
How to Use Inquiry-Based Learning in Chemistry Without Losing Your Mind
The key is to scaffold! Start small and increase independence as students gain confidence.Inquiry doesn’t have to mean chaos.
You might begin with a confirmation lab early in the year, transition to structured labs once students understand basic procedures, sprinkle in guided activities to push their critical thinking, and reserve open inquiry for your end of the year formative assessment.
Your inquiry activities don’t even have to be lab activities. Anything that gets students asking questions works well. That can be something like a logic puzzle, or even one of my chemistry mysteries. These types of activities get students thinking the same way that they do in a lab. PROBLEM SOLVING!
And that’s really what inquiry is right? Asking questions and solving problems. Inquiry-based learning in chemistry doesn’t require a total classroom overhaul. It just means shifting from “follow my directions” to “what do you think will happen if…?” You can work your way up from there.
