Environment

The teacher Juliana introduced the topic of Environment to her students by showing them four pictures and having students write their thoughts on each picture on post-it notes (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Students write their thoughts regarding the 4 trigger pictures on post-it notes.

The next lesson, she kick-started the inquiry process by throwing out this statement to students: "In the past 50 years, humans have consumed more resources than in all previous history", and asked students to explain to her what resources were. This led to a discussion on the topic of coal, oil, deforestation, etc. At this point, Juliana showed her students a video on Man's impact on the environment. She then split the class into groups of 4 to reflect on the video and answer 3 inquiry questions: name 3 negative impacts on the environment; name 2 differences between the environment in the past and present; name 1 thing to change to make the world a better place to live in. Students did this task on mahjong paper (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Students work in groups to answer Juliana's 3 inquiry questions on mahjong paper.

In subsequent lessons, students' work on the mahjong papers were transferred to KF, as Juliana encouraged her students to refine and improve on their original answers and ideas. She also identified promising ideas to let her students build on, and selected important topics for them to work on (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Students work on topics selected by Juliana.

Adaptations

Sally approached her lesson on Adaptations by first showing her students a trigger video on the different kinds of wildlife in Singapore. She then asked them to think about the features of the animals shown to them that would help them adapt to their environment for survival. 

The next lesson, after a recap of the video, Sally asked students to think about the features of other animals that help them to adapt to their surroundings. At this point, students went online to KF, where Sally began the discussion for her class by asking the inquiry questions: “Singapore got wildlife meh?” and "Where does animal wildlife come from?" Students were tasked with posting their ideas about strange animals and wildlife that they were curious about. Her question was followed up with many responses from students (Figure 1)

Eventually, for subsequent lessons, Sally decided to have students come up with their individual KF views of adaptation (e.g. KF views on specific animals, such as skunks and honey badgers; see Figures 2 & 3, respectively) so that their classmates could go in to critique and build on their ideas.

FIg 1. FIrst KF view 'Adaptations'

Fig. 2. KF view 'Skunks'

Fig. 3. KF view 'Honey badgers'

Matter - Liquids

A teacher, Reena, started off her lessons on matter - specifically liquid - to her class by conducting two trigger experiments. 

In the first experiment, she placed an empty bowl on one side of the weighing balance and then another bowl filled with water on the other side of the balance. The experiment was to highlight the idea of the mass of liquid. Students proceeded to write their thoughts on the experiment on KF.

The second experiment Reena conducted was concerning the compressibility of liquids. She filled a syringe with water, then asked a few students to try to push in the plunger while she held her thumb against the mouth of the syringe. Students were again instructed to post their thoughts on KF.

Figures 1 and 2 below show examples of students' notes on KF regarding the first and second experiment, respectively.

Fig 1. Example of student's note on KF for first experiment teacher conducted.

Fig 2. Example of student's note on KF for second experiment teacher conducted.

Heat Energy

A teacher, Jocelyn, introduced the topic of heat energy to her class by letting them watch three different videos.

The first was of hot lava being poured on ice, the second was of lava entering the Pacific Ocean, and the third was a video of a melting ice cube. She then posed four to five guiding inquiry questions on KF for each of the three videos, for students to think about and research on (Fig. 1). For instance, Figure 2 shows the four questions she posed regarding the video of lava entering the Pacific Ocean.

All the inquiry questions were in fact intended to be a lead in to the concept of heat energy. By introducing unknown phenomena to her students as a trigger activity, Jocelyn encouraged them to explore, inquire, and come up with reasons to explain what they saw in the videos. 

Fig 1. KF view 'Heat Energy' of Jocelyn's class.

Fig 2. Example of the guiding questions Jocelyn posed for one of the videos.

Healthy vs. Unhealthy Food

Two teachers were covering the topic of Healthy and unhealthy food with their classes. Instead of relying on the package prepared by their school, they led off the topic by showing students a video clip on junk food and healthy food.

The trigger video showcased an animation of 'Junk Food Bandits' playing a basketball match against the 'Pyramid Powers', in a face-off between healthy and unhealthy food.

The first teacher, Huixuan, posed an open inquiry question to her students after they had watched the video, “What are some of your takeaways from the video?”. She then guided them to post their ideas and questions on KF (Fig. 2). 

Fig 2. 'Healthy vs. Unhealthy Food' KF view of Huixuan's class

The second teacher, Shoba, posed four questions to students prior to showing them the video, in order to guide their thinking while watching it: "What do you think is the purpose of showing you this video?"; "What do you think about the video?"; "What stands out to you in the video?"; and "What interests you?" After watching the video, she directed students to post their thoughts and ideas on KF (Fig. 3). 

Fig 3. 'Healthy vs. Unhealthy Food' KF view of Shoba's class

Adaptations

Hazel showed her class a video clip on flying fish in the wild, and how they escaped from their predators.

After the video clip, she started the discussion in KF with the following question: Putting our knowledge together - What did you learn from the video?

Another teacher, Irene, showed a video clip on different kinds of wildlife in Singapore. She then proceeded to ask them to think about the features of the animals shown to them that would help them adapt to their environment for survival.

Matter

Gerlynn got students to classify items into three categories: matter, non-matter and not sure. She then asked them why they categorised some items as matter and not others.

Their initial theories of matter were:

• “matter is anything that has mass and occupies space” (definition from the textbook)
• “matter is something that you can touch and see”
• “matter has weight”
• “you can see the three types of matter, solid, liquid and gas”