Science teachers have long placed a high value on “scientific” thinking in their classrooms. Unfortunately in the not so recent past this meant cookbook workshops, written lessons, and teaching students a prescribed way of following the scientific method. This left little room for freedom of thought, questioning and independence on the part of the student. The American Association for the Advancement of Science reports that science educators have worked to infuse scientific inquiry into the K-12 curriculum (1990). This may be true, but the definition science teachers use for inquiry has evolved and developed since then. Today, teachers struggle to gain the interest of their students who are surrounded by a multimedia deluge of information and distractions. One way for teachers to implement inquiry in this environment is to use high-interest socioscientific inquiry (SSI). Socioscientific inquiry uses serious ecological concerns and critical citizenship to develop students' scientific inquiry and social responsibilities. There are many barriers to using inquiry in science classrooms that teachers must contend with, such as pressure to perform standardized tests, time, teacher preparation and in-service training, and financial constraints. Using long-term (SSI), socioscientific inquiry will pay dividends for students, teachers, and our environment both locally and globally. The SSI movement focuses specifically on empowering students to consider how science-based issues and decisions they make about them reflect, in part, the moral principles and qualities of virtue that encompass their lives, as well as the physical world and social environment that surrounds them (Walker 2...... middle of paper ...... praction, communication and collaboration.Works CitedAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science. 1990. Science for all Americans: Oxford University Press.Bell, P. (2004) Promoting Student Argument Construction and Collaborative Debate in Internet Education Science Environments. /June 2005 pp. 127-132.Walker, K and Zeidler D. (. 2007). Promoting discourse on socioscientific issues through scaffolded inquiry. International Journal of Science Education Vol. 29, No. 11, pp. 1387–1410. Ketelhut, D. and Nelson, C. (2010): Designing for Real-World Scientific Investigations in Virtual Environments, Educational Research, 52:2, 151-167