Shoreline Exploration: Inquiry Based Research Project

Dover Bay
Inquiry-based projects draw students into thinking critically and creatively about big ideas and
key concepts. Good questions enable students to learn and apply learning to wider
circumstances. These good or 'essential' questions have several common characteristics,
including:
● relevance to the learner
● open-ended and higher-order (have no right or wrong answer)
● answers are not already know
● cannot be answered without careful and lengthy research—answers have to be more
than simple facts
● promote further inquiry

What makes a good inquiry question?

The list below represents the criteria for a good question. The list can be used as a student
reference when generating an inquiry question.
A Good Question:
● has more than one answer
● has a very deep meaning
● gives you lots of information
● doesn't have a yes or no answer
● is hard to answer and takes a lot of thinking to understand the question
● contains exciting words that make you want to look for an answer
● is about something you can research
● takes a long time to figure out
● makes you think, know, and wonder

Create an Inquiry question about the Organism you found on the shoreline hike Nov. 17th.
Here are some possible questions.

How does your organism play a role in shoreline life?

How does your organism survive on the shoreline?
What are the negative impacts on this organism?
Is this Organism thriving on this shoreline?

Once you have created your inquiry question, go get the research started and learn. Below are
some of the questions you will want to answer as you progress toward the inquiry response.

What is your organism?

How did it get to the beach?
How old is it?
What is the life cycle of the organism?
How does it reproduce?