Foundations of Science 2
What Is Foundations of Inquiry Science?
Science builds on itself. When you understand the foundational concepts, you have something to connect new ideas to. If you miss one of those foundations, later concepts can be much harder to understand.
That's what this course is designed to help with. We start at the beginning and work through real science in bite-sized pieces, giving learners time to understand each idea before building on it.
We explore chemistry, physics, life science, and earth science together because these subjects are connected. What we learn about matter helps us understand air and water. What we learn about energy helps us understand everything from moving objects to food chains. We keep coming back to earlier ideas, using them in new ways and building a deeper understanding as we go.
I recommend beginning with Lesson 1, regardless of your learner's age. Older learners may move through the early lessons quickly, and younger learners may need more time. Either is fine. Something seeming simple doesn't mean it isn't an important foundation for what comes next.
Making It Work for Your Learner
The self-paced curriculum is completely free. There are slideshows, videos, activities, games, and printables available to help you explore the concepts together.
Please don't feel like you need to use every resource! Choose what works for your learner. You might watch a slideshow together and talk about it, try an activity, play a game, or use a workbook page to revisit an idea. You don't need to complete everything before moving on. What matters is whether your learner understands the concept, not how many resources you've used.
This is inquiry science, so the discussions and rabbit holes are an important part of the learning! Ask questions, give learners time to explain their thinking, and follow their curiosity. If something makes them wonder, take time to explore it together. You don't need to have every answer. Figuring things out together is part of the process.
The goal is to build understanding, and sometimes the best conversation comes from a question you weren't planning to ask.
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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Getting Started Welcome to Foundations of Inquiry Science! Through hands-on discovery, observation, and careful reasoning, learners build a deep...
Baloney Detection Kit
This lesson was pulled from the information in the orientation to using BFSU. It is an important lesson of detecting fallacies in science...
Lesson 31: Matter vs Energy
Learners put together everything they have covered about matter and energy and arrive at the definitive test for telling them apart....
Lesson 32: Identifying Living Things
Learners develop the skills of a field naturalist, discovering that scientific identification is a careful, evidence-based process...
Lesson 33: Air Pressure
Learners discover what air pressure is at the particle level and why it shapes so much of everyday life. Students have already...
Lesson 34: Habitats
Why Plants and Animals Live Where They Do? Learners investigate the concept of habitat by asking why each plant and animal lives where it does. Students connect environmental...
Lesson 35: Day, Night, and Earth's Rotation
Lesson 36: Compass Directions
Starts from the everyday problem of giving directions to someone whose orientation you can't see, then builds North, East, South, and...
Lesson 37: Pressure Inside and Outside
Learners investigate what happens when the air pressure on one side of a surface differs from the pressure on the other side. Students...
Lesson 38: Properties of Magnets
We'll be testting which household objects a magnet actually grabs, discover that only iron, nickel, cobalt, and steel respond, and...
Lesson 39: Maps and Directions
Extends compass directions to maps: how a compass works, what a map keeps and drops, and why every flat map of a round Earth distorts...
Lesson 40: Vacuums and Suction
Learners investigate what a vacuum actually is and how it behaves, discovering that a vacuum is not a force that pulls but simply a...
Lesson 41: Magnetic Fields
We'll be discovering the invisible field surrounding every magnet, make it visible with iron filings, and see that it's a...
Lesson 42: What Is a Species?
We define a species by the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, distinguishes species from breeds and varieties, and...
Lesson 43: Earth as a Magnet
The whole Earth is a giant magnet, powered by a swirling liquid iron core, and connects that to why a compass doesn't point at exactly...
Lesson 44: Variation Within a Species
Learners will see why no two members of a species are identical. We'll talk about splitting traits into inherited (from genes) and...
Lesson 45: Clouds and Weather
This lesson explains what a cloud actually is, how invisible water vapor becomes visible droplets, and how the collision of air masses at...
Lesson 46: Adaptations for Survival
Expands adaptation into both physical and behavioral traits, introduces niche and habitat, and helps learners connect an animal's...
Lesson 47: Air as a Mixture
This lesson has two hands-on experiments to prove that air isn't one substance but a mixture of gases with different properties: oxygen...
Lesson 48: Earth's Landforms
We'll be introducing the major shapes of Earth's surface (ranges, plateaus, plains, valleys, and basins). We'll discuss how rivers,...
Lesson 49: Mixtures vs Reactions
We're going to learn how tell a chemical reaction (new substance, energy change) apart from a simple mixture (nothing new, nothing...
Lesson 50: Basic Plant Structure
Almost very plant is built from just three parts, roots, stem, and leaves, no matter how different those parts look across species. We'll...
Lesson 51: Respiration and Photosynthesis
Traces where a plant's mass actually comes from (air, not soil) and shows how photosynthesis and respiration as the same carbon-cycling...
Lesson 52: How Plants Function
Covers the three jobs plants must coordinate to survive, absorption, transport, and the constant water loss of transpiration, so learners...
Lesson 53: Evaporation
Explains evaporation as molecules leaving a liquid one at a time, and shows learners the variables that speed it up (surface area, heat,...
Lesson 54: Plant Reproduction and Seeds
We will walk through flower anatomy, pollination, and fertilization, and how a fruit's real job is dispersing seeds, ending with the seed...
Lesson 55: Condensation and the Water Cycle
Completes the evaporation story with condensation, dew, and frost, and helps scale the two processes up to the planet-wide water cycle...
Lesson 56: Seeds and Germination
A dry seed can wait for years before it starts to grow. Learners sprout beans in a window and discover that a seed needs water, oxygen,...
Lesson 57: Biomes and Climate
A desert and a rainforest can sit at the same distance from the equator. Students separate weather from climate and work out how...
Lesson 58: Seedling Growth and Plant Responses
Turn a seedling upside down and it still finds its way. Learners discover that roots grow down, shoots grow up, and stems bend toward...
Lesson 59: Simple Machines and Work
A lever can lift a heavy load, but it cannot save any work. Students define work as force over distance and discover that every simple...
Lesson 60: Plants, Soil, and Erosion
Soil is much more than dirt. Learners examine what soil is made of, why decayed plant matter matters to roots, and how plants hold soil...