We focus on building strong conceptual foundations. Through observation, inquiry, and hands-on experimentation, students develop the habits of thinking like scientists and build confidence in understanding how the natural world works.
Why Choose This Course?
- Concept-First Learning: Instead of memorizing facts, we explore the core principles that connect scientific phenomena, building lasting understanding.
- Inquiry-Driven: Each lesson is built around questions that encourage students to observe, hypothesize, test, and analyze.
- Secular & Inclusive: The curriculum is designed for a diverse community, focusing on scientific evidence and shared human experience.
All course materials including presentations and worksheets are original works created by Selene at Rabbit Hole Learning LLC. All rights reserved.
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Get Started
Getting Started
Welcome to Foundations of Inquiry Science – Semester 1
Through hands-on discovery, observation, and careful reasoning, learners build a...
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Extra
Baloney Detection Kit
Want to learn about detecting fallacies?
Book Recommendation:
There's a Dragon in my Garage
...
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Lesson 1
Organizing Things into Categories
Learners discover that sorting things into categories is a skill they already use every day. This foundational thinking skill underlies...
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Lesson 2
Solids, Liquids, and Gases Introduction
Everything around us exists as a solid, liquid, or gas. Learners sort familiar objects and materials into one of these three states of...
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Lesson 3
Gravity Introduction
Learners discover what gravity is, explore why it never turns off, and connect it to the ideas of horizontal and vertical. Hands-on...
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Lesson 4
States of Matter: Changes with Temperature
Learners observe how many materials, especially water, shift between solid, liquid, and gas states as temperature changes. They finish...
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Lesson 5
Orbits and Gravity in Space
Learners connect gravity to orbits and discover why orbiting objects are in a constant state of free fall. They also explore why weight...
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Lesson 6
What is Energy?
Everything moves, heats up, or lights up because of energy. Learners identify the different forms of energy and discover that all of them...
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Lesson 7
Air is Real
Through hands-on experiments, students show that air takes up space and has weight, just like solids and liquids, proving that it is a...
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Lesson 8
Energy Transformation
Learners explore how energy never disappears but constantly changes form, and how it always moves from where there is more toward where...
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Lesson 9
Air and the Atmosphere
Learners connect what they know about air to the bigger picture of Earth's atmosphere, and are introduced to the four systems that make...
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Lesson 10
Is it Alive?
Students sort a collection of living and nonliving things into three categories: biological, natural Earth, and human-made. The focus is...
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Lesson 11
Matter is Made of Particles
Through hands-on activities, students reason their way to the discovery that all matter is made of particles too small to see. They also...
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Lesson 12
Light and Shadows
Learners explore light as a form of energy, discover why shadows form and change, and find out that almost everything they see is...
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Lesson 13
Changes in Particles with States of Matter
Learners use the particulate nature of matter to explain why solids, liquids, and gases behave so differently. The key is not just...
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Lesson 14
Technology, Tools, and the Engineering Process
Students learn what technology really means, explore how some animals use and even pass down tools, discover the engineering design...
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Lesson 15
Reversible and Nonreversible Changes
Learners distinguish between changes that can be undone, like water freezing and thawing, and changes that cannot, like burning. The key...
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Lesson 16
Sound and Vibrations
Learners begin their exploration of sound by discovering its most fundamental truth: every sound in the universe starts with vibration....
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Lesson 17
Kinetic and Potential Energy
Learners discover that energy is not mysterious or invisible in the way we might imagine. Through hands-on demos with rubber bands,...
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Lesson 18
How Sound and Light Travel in Waves
Building directly on Lesson 16, learners investigate what actually happens when sound leaves its source and travels to a listener....
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Lesson 19
Plants vs. Animals
Learners explore the two major kingdoms of life and discover that the division between plants and animals is not about appearance or...
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Lesson 20
Energy in the Natural World
Building directly on Lesson 17, learners connect the principles of kinetic and potential energy to all living things. Starting with the...
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Lesson 21
Categories of Materials
Learners discover that the enormous variety of objects in the human-made world can be sorted into just eight basic material categories....
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Lesson 22
Weather and the Water Cycle
Learners explore weather as a natural phenomenon that changes from day to day and varies by season and location. Students observe and...
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Lesson 23
Properties of Different Materials
Building on Lesson 21, learners investigate how scientists identify and describe materials using observable and testable properties....
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Lesson 24
The Life Cycle Concept
Learners are introduced to one of biology's most fundamental organizing ideas: every living thing follows a life cycle, a predictable...
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Lesson 25
Understanding Force
Learners investigate one of physics' most fundamental concepts: force. Students discover that force is the strength of any push or pull...
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Lesson 26
Metamorphosis and Life Cycles
Building on the life cycle concept introduced in Lesson 24, learners investigate the remarkable variety of ways different organisms...
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Lesson 27
How Force and Energy Work Together
Building directly on Lesson 25, learners discover how force and energy are connected, but not the same thing. The lesson establishes...
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Lesson 28
Animal Adaptations and Diet
Learners investigate how animals' physical features reveal what they eat and how they survive. Students examine teeth, beaks, claws, and...
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Lesson 29
Reading and Drawing Maps
Learners develop spatial reasoning and visual literacy skills by exploring how maps represent real spaces. Students discover that all...
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Lesson 30
Food Chains and Energy Flow
Learners trace the path of energy through ecosystems, from the sun through producers and consumers. Students build food chains and food...