OK, so I presented the DNA modeling activity in my curriculum & instruction class Monday night. I'm still not clear in my mind to what extent the activity is an inquiry activity. I got some good suggestions (below) on how to make it more of an inquiry activity, but as it was carried out I remain skeptical.
First, what is inquiry? One of my problems with this term is that it means so many different things to so many people. In order to answer address the question, "Is it inquiry?" you first have to define the term.
I like the inquiry framework on the TIEE website that shows inquiry as a sort of continuum with totally directed instruction at one end and open ended inquiry at the other. I suppose one could argue for this type of modeling activity to fit within their "guided inquiry" definition based on the level of student ownership - in this case, that was basically in the analysis & presentation column. Everything else was pretty much given - the question, the method, & the "data collection," which didn't really apply in this activity. In the future I would take some suggestions from my classmates and allow students more freedom in devising a model of their own. I would have the following conditions, the students would decide how to meet those conditions:
1. Must be a model made up of repeating parts, just like real DNA. In other words, must be made by linking together 2 separate strands, each strand made of distinct phosphate groups, sugars, bases. May be organized into nucleotide groupings, but...
2. Must be able to replicate by "unzipping" and then adding nucleotides.
3. Must have a color code for the base pairs.
4. Must have the basic shape of a segment of DNA - "ladder" - not necessarily helical - for this activity.
I might refine the criteria a little more before I have to teach this again next year.
A final note. The definitions of inquiry on the TIEE site and others often seem to be limited to studies that require the gathering of data to answer a research question. However, making models is clearly a part of what scientists do (even if it's just a preliminary step toward formulating research questions & hypotheses) and the NY State intermediate level standards include making models:
Interconnectedness
Key Idea 2:
Models are simplified representations of objects, structures, or systems used in analysis, explanation, interpretation, or design.
2.1 Select an appropriate model to begin the search for answers or solutions to a question or problem.
2.2 Use models to study processes that cannot be studied directly (e.g., when the real process is too slow, too fast, or too dangerous for direct observation).
2.3 Demonstrate the effectiveness of different models to represent the same thing and
the same model to represent different things.
Again, not to be pedantic, but these standards for modeling are not included in the "inquiry" standards but the "interconnectedness" standards. It seems to me if the word "inquiry" is to have any meaning, then it cannot be so broad as to lose all it's original meaning related to "inquiring" or asking questions. My bottom line feeling, and I'll stop here, is that in the usual educational all-or-nothing approach to teaching strategies, a lot of useful and important science teaching practices were being cast aside because they weren't "inquiry." Now the desire to include those useful strategies has resulted in a broadening of the term inquiry to include those strategies. The way I see it, building models may be part of an inquiry activity if the model is used to generate questions & hypotheses that CAN be investigated, but the model-building itself only fits within a rather loose definition of inquiry.
(It's getting late & I'm talking off the top of my head. Maybe I'll continue this train of thought & put more research into it for my final paper.)
