Chocolate Chip Cookie Inquiry

This topic submitted by Scott Smith ( nw_123@omalp1.omeresa.ohio.gov ) at 15:00 on 2/26/99. Additions were last made on Monday, April 26, 2004.

Inquiry-based learning allows for individual student or group discovery. The student/group investigates a concept that is "important" to them. As a teacher, I don't "give" them what they need to know through a lecture only, but rather I give them assistance, support, and resources as they try to solve their own individual problem.


I feel the benefit from inquiry-based learning is the fact that it gives students control (responsibility) over their individualized educational path. They have an ownership in the educational process. I work in a middle school setting, as a sixth grade science teacher, where I see an age group that is in transition from elementary to high school ways. They are seeking independence. By giving them freedom of choice in the classroom, I have noticed class participation and effort has increased while missing assignments, detentions, and Saturday School has decreased.


One way I have incorporated inquiry-based learning in my classroom is by doing a "Chocolate Chip Cookie Study." With food you have a middle school student's attention! I use this activity to introduce the Scientific Method in preparation for the Science Fair project they will do in seventh grade. I introduce this activity as a dissection (another cool concept for a sixth grader). Students bring in packages of cookies, milk, and juice. We will eventually get to enjoy untested cookies at the end of the activity. We observe, classify, measure, control variables, infer and predict, represent data, and communicate while dissecting cookies. (At first I don't use these words, it's not until class discussions do these words come out.) The student is given a choice when selecting characteristics that she would like to test and measure, as well as, problems she would like to try to solve. The student is given a few requirements as a framework, but she chooses the path. Finally, through individual, small group, and whole class discussions, terms, scientific concepts, and problems are explained and solved. The students are more times than not the ones doing the explaining and solving.

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It is 9:51:51 AM on Monday, November 23, 2009. Last Update: Monday, April 26, 2004