Teachers can evaluate and adjust their teaching approaches to meet the educational needs of their students and society.  Inquiry-based teaching methods allow teachers to expand students' science skills and help mold lifelong learners.   Students must follow an inquiry based process in seeking knowledge in curricular subjects. 

            "Inquiry" is defined as "a seeking for truth, information, or knowledge; seeking information by questioning."  The process of inquiring begins with gathering information and data through applying the human senses; seeing, hearing, touching. As learners encounter problems they do not understand, they formulate questions, explore problems, observe, and apply new information in seeking a better understanding of the world...

According to the article, the first inquiry skill students need to learn is that of asking questions. Young children seem to have a never ending supply of questions. Older children, on the other hand, rarely ask questions, preferring instead to let their teachers perform this duty. They are more accustomed to providing memorized answers to questions asked by teachers. It can be safely said that this behavior is shaped by the educational system. The consequence of this conditioning process is well established in most learners once they have spent a few years in school and can significantly interfere with their ability to formulate questions and conduct self-directed investigations. Teachers interested in promoting inquiry have a challenging task to overcome the tendency of many older students to become passive.

Based on the context for Inquiry, the educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Students become less prone to ask questions as they move through the grade levels. In traditional schools, students learn not to ask too many questions, instead to listen and repeat the expected answers.  Some of the discouragement of our natural inquiry process may come from a lack of understanding about the deeper nature of inquiry-based learning. There is even a tendency to view it as "fluff" learning. Effective inquiry is more than just asking questions. A complex process is involved when individuals attempt to convert information and data into useful knowledge. Useful application of inquiry learning involves several factors: a context for questions, a framework for questions, a focus for questions, and different levels of questions. Well-designed inquiry learning produces knowledge formation that can be widely applied.

The benefits of inquiry based learning are within a conceptual framework, inquiry learning and active learner involvement can lead to important outcomes in the classroom. Students who actively make observations, collect, analyze, and synthesize information, and draw conclusions are developing useful problem-solving skills. These skills can be applied to future "need to know" situations that students will encounter both at school and at work.  Another benefit that inquiry-based learning offers is the development of habits of mind that can last a lifetime and guide learning and creative thinking.

Conclusion, inquiry-based teaching takes time from what I gathered.  In order for the student to do inquiry, students need opportunities to participant in learning by inquiry.  The article was very interesting  and enlighten. 

             (http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/index.html)