Hi, my name is Muireann. My favourite space fact is that sunsets on Mars are blue.
An inquiry based lesson I have done before is making parachutes. We looked at a video of someone parachuting and examined photos of parachutes. I elicited the children’s thoughts on what makes a good parachute and they concluded it needed to slow a person’s fall. The class were then given a variety of materials (fabrics, newspaper, tin foil etc) to test. They also had string and a clothes peg to act as the person. I questioned the children on how we would test the best material and they decided they would use a timer and the best parachute would be the one that took the longest to fall. The children worked in groups to make their parachutes and test them out by standing on a chair and dropping them. They were encouraged to test all of the materials. Once every group had finished testing we had a class discussion on what worked the best and why they think that might be.