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Title: A Guided-Inquiry Activity for Introducing Students to Figures from Primary Scientific Literature
Reading and understanding scientific literature is an essential skill for any scientist to learn. While students’ scientific literacy can be improved by reading research articles, an article’s technical language and structure can hinder students’ understanding of the scientific material. Furthermore, many students struggle with interpreting graphs and other models of data commonly found in scientific literature. To introduce students to scientific literature and promote improved understanding of data and graphs, we developed a guided-inquiry activity adapted from a research article on snow chemistry and implemented it in a general chemistry laboratory course. Here, we describe how we adapted figures from the primary literature source and developed questions to scaffold the guided-inquiry activity. Results from semi-structured qualitative interviews suggest that students learn about snow chemistry processes and engage in scientific practices, including data analysis and interpretation, through this activity. This activity is applicable in other introductory science courses as educators can adapt most scientific articles into a guided-inquiry activity.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1821884
PAR ID:
10475521
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Editor(s):
Holme, Thomas
Publisher / Repository:
American Chemical Society
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of Chemical Education
Volume:
100
Issue:
5
ISSN:
0021-9584
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1788 to 1795
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
First-Year Undergraduate, General, Environmental Chemistry, Collaborative, Cooperative Learning, Inquiry-Based, Discovery Learning
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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