Enquiry prompts for primary science students

Enquiry prompts help primary science classes go from “What’s the right answer?” to “How can we find out?” By making curiosity the starting point for every lesson, they empower students to discover things for themselves instead of waiting for the teacher to tell them.

These scientific enquiries matter because they develop foundational skills early on. Children can’t rely on adults and textbooks for answers forever; they need opportunities to come up with and test their own ideas.

But not every question leads to meaningful enquiry. Closed or overly structured prompts can shut down discussion just as quickly as it’s started. They must be carefully structured to spark your students’ curiosity and support discovery.

So let’s look at some effective enquiry prompts you can use in your primary classroom to get students thinking and acting more like scientists.

What makes an effective enquiry prompt

The best enquiry prompts share a few key characteristics:

• They’re open-ended: Instead of steering the class toward a single answer, effective prompts get students thinking about the scientific processes at work.
• They’re observable: Students should be able to measure, compare or record whatever they’re investigating to keep the enquiry focused.
• They’re testable: A good enquiry makes the most of the materials and equipment available in the primary classroom.
• They invite follow-up questions: Any findings should open the door to further investigation, making it easy to see how scientific theory all ties together.

“Why does water evaporate?” is an example of what to avoid in an enquiry prompt. While it’s scientific in nature, it calls for explanation rather than investigation and doesn’t give students anything to do beyond that. The likely outcome is that the class makes guesses and teachers either confirm the correct answer or correct them.

Five enquiry prompts to use in your primary science classroom

Here are five types of enquiry prompts, based on different types of scientific investigation, that you can use to develop your own questions for the primary classroom.

1. What happens to ___ when we change ___?

Examples:

What happens to the sound a guitar makes when we change the tightness of the strings?

What happens to the size of a shadow when we change the distance between the object and the light source?

Fair testing is probably what most people think of when you mention science at school. In this type of investigation, students change one variable in a controlled environment to observe its effects. Some common examples are seeing how long it takes ice to melt in different conditions or what happens when you move a magnet closer and further away from paperclips.

Our enquiry prompt asks students to predict what they’re going to see and reason why. After they’ve finished the experiment, they can compare their predictions against their findings to confirm their theory.

These types of enquiries are ideal for investigating light, sound and other natural forces. Once students have a basic understanding of how light and sound behave in a controlled environment, teachers can extend the discussion by asking how these rules apply to natural phenomena and real world technologies.

2. What changes in ___ can you observe over ___?

Examples:

What changes in this sunflower can you observe over the course of the day?

What changes in these tadpoles can you observe over three months?

Observations are similar to fair testing except the students don’t change the variables. Instead, they look for patterns in naturally occurring phenomena and try to explain why they happen.

Asking them to identify patterns rather than explain them helps students think more deeply about the scientific process behind a phenomenon. For example, most primary-aged children can predict that plants will get bigger. Getting them to actively observe plant growth over time encourages them to investigate more subtle details like leaf buds and root systems and consider why they’re happening.

3. What pattern can you see between ___ and ___?

Examples:

What pattern can you see between the time of day and the temperature?

What pattern can you see between the mass of different objects and whether they sink or float?

Looking for relationships between variables helps develop students’ understanding of causation and correlation. Importantly, it helps them to start making inferences about phenomena they can’t directly observe. As primary schoolers are still very literal-minded, this helps them start thinking about the world in more abstract terms.

The enquiry prompt here starts by asking students to identify an observable trend. Once they’ve recorded their findings, you can ask follow-up questions to help them make strong inferences. If they notice the temperature is highest at 3 pm, for example, move on to asking about the position of the sun and the length of the shadows.

4. How would you group different types of ___ and why?

Examples:

How would you group different types of rocks and why?

How would you group different types of food and why?

Comparing and contrasting everyday objects is great for building observation skills. Students can discover how many materials share the properties and begin to develop a more sophisticated schemata of the world they live in.

For example, students might group different types of animals based on their habitat. However, they may not have developed an understanding of how ecosystems work yet beyond ‘squirrels live in trees’. As a follow up, you could ask students to identify similarities between animals that live in the same environment and ask how these features help them survive. Slowly, they should move from simple ideas like ‘squirrels and mice like trees’ to more complex explanations like ‘small mammals store food in trees and hide from predators in them’.

5. How can we design ___ that ___?

Examples:

How can we design a paper aeroplane that travels as far as possible?

How can we design packing that protects an egg when dropped from a height?

Engineering challenges involve applying your students’ scientific knowledge to solve a problem. They’re an opportunity to get more hands-on in the primary classroom while testing a scientific enquiry.

This type of enquiry prompt has a lot of potential for follow up. As students attempt the challenge, they can keep changing their design and see what works best. They’ll also feel more invested in understanding why certain designs were less successful than others so they can improve.

Turning students into scientific thinkers

Great enquiry prompts help foster a learning environment where questioning is routine, not just occasional. They develop scientific thinking in your young students – and can even encourage them to picture themselves as future scientists.

The trick is to start small and build these skills over time. Instead of expecting parents or teachers to deliver the answers, students will become more comfortable with asking questions and finding the solutions themselves, and less fixated on getting the “correct” answers.

Further reading

Make science spark even more curiosity among your students. Read How to get primary school students interested in science and Five fun and easy science experiments for school.

See how our Pearson International Primary Science programme  keeps budding scientists engaged as they move through Primary to Lower Secondary and International GCSE.