Crawl Into Inquiry-Based Learning Hermit Crab Experiments

There is a particular need for inquiry-based lessons in the early elementary grades, when students are starting to develop their analytical skills. In this article, the authors present a 2-tiered inquiry-based lesson plan for 1st and 2nd grades that has been successfully used by graduate teaching fellows involved in the National Science Foundation GK-12 program at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB), University of Oregon. This lesson involves the use of live marine or terrestrial hermit crabs. The first tier of the lesson covers the anatomy, general ecology, and classification of the hermit crabs, with students making detailed observations and asking questions about their live subjects. The second tier is an experiment to test a question commonly raised by students: Do hermit crabs like to live on sand or on rocks? Students use this question to design and choose an experimental setup, make hypotheses, record and report results, evaluate their experiment, and suggest possible improvements.