Robyn,
with inquiry in this course we specifically refer to the Curious Minds ESERO Framework for Inquiry. We tend not to refer to hypotheses, which they will meet in second level school, but to making predictions based on their scientific understanding.
They may well use “books, videos, and interactive simulations to help them explore the topic further” to help them find out answers to their questions, particularly their own (or teacher guided) “starter question.”
So, if you planned to use “What would it be like to live on Mars?” as the prompt, the children may then wonder and explore their thinking as they share questions/ find out facts to frame a starter question.
This might be around: Is there water on Mars? – and they might use the Mars activity set at spaceweek.ie to explore how water channels are formed and if Mars images have those types of shapes.
The more general activities you have described might form part of the “take the next step” as they might consider how Mars is like/unlike other planets,. or consider how the distance from the Sun to Mars is greater than the distance of Earth from the Sun and how that affects Mars – it is colder.