Results II

Chapter 10: Should I Keep My Lucky Socks?

by Donna Chrisman, Barbara Enzensperger, Kyle Haws, and Brenna Enzensperger

Four teachers team up their classes and their different content areas in this interdisciplinary investigation. Reading about the adventures of a Native American teenager who developed powers from a bear-shaped stone he had found, the students became intrigued with the concept of a lucky charm (called a “totem” or “fetish”). They wanted to know whether a totem would help them perform better on mental and physical tasks. Through the investigation they designed and carried out, the students learned the value of statistical data analysis for providing evidence to support an argument. One of the More Emphasis conditions met in this scientific inquiry is process skills in context. Allocating extra time “borrowed” from other content areas enabled students “to understand data from their actual experience of engaging in the data analysis portion of their inquiry.”