A Taste of Inquiry

Really great learning experiences can come in all shapes and sizes.  Usually they're hands-on, inquiry-based, and collaborative. This makes for an engaging lesson, but with technology, students have the opportunity to extend this learning experience to turn their ideas into visual representations.  This can make the difference between meaningful learning and simple understanding.

In Zach Holden's 4th grade eMINTS classroom, students used the eMINTS Instructional Model in an inquiry based lesson involving their taste buds.  Due to assistance from local fast food restaurants, Mr. Holden was able to acquire various hamburgers for his students to taste test.  Students made hypotheses and took a blind taste test with the hamburgers.  They collected data based on their five senses, polled the remainder of the students for their preferred hamburger, then charted and graphed the information using Excel.  Finally, the students used Word to write a persuasive business letter to their favorite restaurant, explaining why they liked their hamburger the best and what qualities the restaurants might consider using in their meals.

This lesson met all pieces of the eMINTS Instructional Model of inquiry, high quality lesson design, a classroom community, and technology, and was also interdisciplinary in that students met grade level expectations of mathematics, science, and communication arts.  In addition, by using Excel to create graphs and charts, students made visual representations that solidify connections made by visual learners.

Using Word as a scaffold for the students' first experience in writing business letters assisted with the format, spelling, grammar, and punctuation of their letter.  In addition, by using advanced settings, students can check the quality of their writing and compare it to grade level expectations.

One student said, "When I tried Hamburger A, it was delicious!  Now I know where I should eat!" 

All in all, this lesson left the students inspired to discuss the qualities of the hamburgers and hungry to explore even more.