The Inquiry Wheel

In my previous post, I touched lightly on the subject of inquiry. When carrying out an experiment, there is no traditional scientific method, as we all learned as elementary students. When you are truly delving into science, it is never perfect. You will have to try and try again to carry out your experiment. You'll have to back track and ask more questions until you come up with the right answers. The ideal way to describe this circular process is through the inquiry wheel: 

This will cover all of your bases, where as the scientific method is the simple "ask question, research, form hypothesis, test hypothesis, analyze data, form conclusion". The inquiry wheel gives you more wiggle room, and allows you to retrace your steps. If you end up proving your hypothesis wrong, you can immediately ask why, reform your hypothesis, and continue with your experiment. With the scientific method, you're either right or wrong. This will be very helpful when my group and I begin to carry out our semester experiment. We plan on investigating the effects of deer scat in soil, and whether or not it helps plants grow compared to store bought fertilized soil. Though it can't be tested, we were also curious if using deer scat as fertilizer would also work as a repellent for keeping deer out of your garden. We surely won't limit ourselves to one try. The inquiry wheel will encourage us to keep at our research and testing, until we find an answer to our question.

EJ