Predicting which ice cubes will melt in each plastic cup helps develop which skill?

• A. Reading comprehension
• B. Spatial reasoning
• C. Arithmetic fluency
• D. Scientific Inquiry skills

Answer: (D)

Predicting which ice cubes will melt in each plastic cup taps into scientific inquiry: you observe a phenomenon, make a testable prediction, and then check what happens to see if your guess holds. You can form a hypothesis about how heat transfer or cup characteristics might affect melting, plan or note an experiment, observe the melting order or timing, compare results, and explain why they occurred using evidence from your observations. This practice builds the ability to ask questions, propose explanations, test them with data, and reason from evidence—core aspects of scientific inquiry. The other skills—reading comprehension, arithmetic fluency, or spatial reasoning—center on processing text, calculations, or mental manipulation of shapes, rather than investigating a physical process through observation and data collection.