For the purpose of this template a phenomenon is anything that inspires curiosity and inquiry. For example an image of Blood Falls in Antarctica where blood-red water shoots from a waterfall into a river. This image could also be referred to as a discrepant event - something that does not fit your expectations and therefore challenges you to update your model of the world around you. 

Learners may have many different question but it can be helpful to set a shared guiding question to direct the lesson towards a specific learning objective such as, in this case, predicting chemical reactions. 

For example: What is the chemical reaction that makes Blood Falls red? 

Include evidence for learners to explore! This could be a reading that gives hints about the reactants in these equations or a data set of mineral content over time as the river turns more red in summer months, or a video. You could also take this to the next level by having learners plan and conduct an investigation of their own by providing some materials — for this example learners might explore a few naturally found compounds and see what could create red coloring. 

After learners investigate the phenomenon through one or more activities, it is time to make some conclusions and discuss them to update the mental model that learners have. There are many ways to format this, but in this part of the lesson it is good to include some instructions and reminders of discussion norms. Will students discuss in teams? Will this be a whole class discussion? Will they draw and write on whiteboards and posters and then share in a gallery walk? The ultimate goal should be to synthesize an improved explanation for the guiding question based on evidence from investigation. 

A Phenomena-Driven Inquiry Lesson Template for Science