Constructing a Learning Environment that Scaffolds Science Inquiry in First Grade

This interpretive case study describes how students, their parents and teacher identified specific characteristics of a classroom learning environment that provided a scaffold for first graders to engage in science inquiry. Using the hermeneutic-dialectic process of negotiating consensus, a shared description of five components of a science inquiry classroom learning environment is described. Specific characteristics of the physical environment, material resources, social interactions, intrapersonal habits of engagement in learning, and the co-participation by students and teachers in the refinement of the learning environment are presented. This study reports some of the shared perceptions of a classroom teacher, 20 students, and parents who engaged in co-constructing and co-researching one learning environment that supported science inquiry. The importance of making the constructs of the learning environment explicit to elementary school students is documented.