School science practical activities have been criticised for exposing learners to a series of phenomena
disconnected from the conceptual frameworks needed to understand them. Such activities are successful
in the ‘domain of observables’ but not the ‘domain of ideas’. Few resources exist for classroom teachers
wishing to improve the effectiveness of practical activities in the domain of ideas. This report describes
an action research project to develop a scaffold for biology practical lessons. This scaffold separates
inquiry questions and the techniques needed to address them, and thus combines two approaches to
scaffolding in a single tool (‘problematising’ and ‘reducing the degrees of freedom’). Analysis of the
speech of 16–17 year olds in the study class (n = 23) was used to assess their engagement in the domain
of ideas. Following the scaffold’s introduction, the learners were found to speak more about relevant
ideas and concepts during practical activities. When the scaffold was partially faded, the learners continued
to demonstrate engagement with the domain of ideas. The approach reported here would seem to
have much potential for supporting learning from ‘minds-on’ biology practical work in a variety of
contexts.

• Separating ‘Inquiry Questions’ and ‘Techniques’ to Help Learners Move between the How and the Why of Biology Practical Work

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