Around the World Inquiry

Our first inquiry project this year combined reading, social studies, and science with an “Around the World” theme. We used our research skills to explore and write facts about all seven continents. Before getting stamps in our passports, we had to stamp out our inquiry ideas.  As a class, we brainstormed questions to research about the continents. The students had awesome questions.  They asked things like:

What land forms and landmarks are on the continent?

How many countries are in the continent?

What animal and plant life are on the continent? 

What languages are spoken there?

We categorized their questions into location/size, attractions, plant and animal life, and culture.  In order to find the information we needed in nonfiction books, we had to know how to navigate the features of nonfiction text.  We learned about features like the table of contents, diagrams, captions, glossary, and index.  We even went on a nonfiction text features hunt.  The students below are playing headbands to explain and guess the text feature on their forehead.  So fun!

Our first continent was Europe. We read several different nonfiction books and articles on Europe.  We charted the answers to our inquiry questions.  Later, students used our notes to write their own facts about Europe.  Over the next couple weeks, we continued this process with each of the seven continents.  The students started to get really good at jotting notes and then creating their own sentences from the notes.

We are also learning many important geography objectives. For instance, we learned about hemispheres and the oceans.  Science and social studies crossed objectives when we studied the equator and how that effects the climate.  We even made a climate map based on average temperatures of major world cities.

The students are very proud of their world inquiry books.  On the last page, the researchers wrote about which continent they'd like to visit and why.  I sure wish I could take them on a field trip around the world.  Instead we watched many YouTube videos, National Geographic Kids has a great continent series.  The students also loved to look up and "visit" certain landmarks using Google Earth. I just love their curiosity and spirit for learning!