Young people seem to notice everything?  They make observations all of the time and  and ask lots of questions.  They are scientists at heart.  That being said, science is much more than making observations and asking questions.  What takes scientific inquiry to the next level?  How does “doing” science work?  How do scientists make sense of the world?

The 7th graders have begun the year pondering these questions.  They have been taking a closer look at how scientists “do” science by designing their own experiments using paper airplanes.  The design process involves students making observations and inferences, identifying variables, developing hypotheses, writing a procedure, collecting data and drawing conclusions.  This process has been intentionally slowed down to really dig deeper into how aspects of scientific inquiry work and why they are important.