I’m really pleased with some of the investigations students have designed. Our QFT focused on different rock formations of the Red River Gorge. I put 4 pictures on the screen of different phenomenon which form the main attractions of the area; sandstone cliffs, cliffs with voids (rock climbers seem to love these) rock shelters and arches. The only think I told them was where they were found and that water played a key role in the formation of each. They developed research questions and completed a very basic sort of annotated bibliography to document what they found.

I tried to have the students develop a model based on what they found, but decided the investigation would be more profitable for their learning. Also, many of the were already planning to create a type of model in the course of their investigation. I ultimately tried to work around this redundancy by shortening the project. If they documented their investigation well enough and applied what they learned to the Gorge phenomena, they would consequently construct a sort of model.

The investigations the students planned were pretty impressive. I had one student who set out to see how quickly rock would dissolve and inadvertently discovered differences in how much water they would absorb. Others focused more on qualitative observations and had trouble transitioning to a more analytical approach. Several students showed a real interest and went to great lengths to gather and observe materials from the local rock strata. One student did multiple freeze/thaw cycles with several samples of rock he found near his home and compiled very descriptive qualitative descriptions of the effects. I’ll bring samples of student work to our meeting.