Aim:
To encourage the students to ask questions and to develop the skill of identifying questions that arouse curiosity and for which there are perhaps no given answers.
Format:
Choose some questions currently under discussion in the media. Illustrate these with objects or and actual newspaper cuttings, clips from YouTube, advertisements etc. It is important that the topic is current. The students can work in groups with a variety of questions.
Task:
Each group is given the material.
- What questions do you have about these situations?
- What to you need to know in order to understand the problem, make a decision or to act?
- Write up your questions on a note pad.
- Sort them according to content
When the students have written and sorted their questions, the following questions are asked:
- What questions are about science?
- Which questions can be answered by some kind of investigation?
- Where do you find information?
- What knowledge do you need?
- Of science
- Other
- How do you know that the information is reliable?
Then, using the results of the questions above, discuss:
- Which situation is most interesting?
- Different types of question – productive, divergent, convergent, etc.
- What is an investigation?
- Various types of investigation