For one of our lessons for the unit plan we created an artifact bag. This is an inquiry lesson.
The purpose of an artifact mystery bag is to encourage our students to research. Our students will look into the bag and discover what artifacts we placed in them. They would then do research based on the books or websites we provided for them and discover why all these items were placed together and how they are related. We did a mock version of this in our class today. It was interesting to see the items our classmates chose and the reasoning behind why they chose them. As an adult I enjoy doing the inquiry lesson portion of a unit. It is fun to explore. In my lesson I encouraged the participators to answer questions based on the 5 W's. Who, what, where, when, and why. This encourages the students to think much deeper.
I agree that this inquiry lesson will be one that engages our students if for nothing else just because they are curious by nature and will want to know what is inside of the bag. Having them do their own research using books and websites will be a great way to allow them to discover the significance of the items that had been presented. This interactive learning will ensure that they can make the relevant connections necessary to their learning. And as you stated it is will a "fun" way for them to participate.
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