By Anne Stevenson Imagine an after-school program in which second graders learn about chemical change by making pancakes. Or a club in which kids in fourth through sixth grades build a Rube Goldberg machine for a county competition. Or a group of teens re-engineering an underwater robot. How do you, as the adult guiding the learning experience, facilitate inquiry to best engage them and challenge deeper thinking? Adults may feel successful in creating a “space” where questions are encouraged, yet they feel challenged with how to further facilitate group learning, guide youth but not give them all the answers, and help deepen the learning experience with content or higher level thinking skills. These are strategies that will work in any learning setting, even if you don’t work specifically with STEM programming. Inquiry-based learning is as an approach that includes exploring the natural or material world through questioning, discoveries, and testing the questions ...
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