To help others understand your discoveries, develop a description of the inquiry setting and what was going on during the time you collected data for your inquiry. This description documents the context in which your inquiry occurred. It also gets the information on paper so all CLIP members can agree on it. It encourages conversation about the different parts of the context that may be important.

Include conditions and activities that are related to your inquiry question, as well as those that directly affected the question. Here are some ideas to consider as you decide on the level of detail and what to include in your description:

• Physical environment: Describe the physical setting of your inquiry in enough detail to allow others to visualize the context of your inquiry.
  
  
• Social environment: Describe the people involved and the ways in which they act, interact, and organize themselves. Do not include perceptions, but describe facts and what is observable.
  
  
• Activities related to the inquiry question: Describe activities and events that relate to your inquiry question, including what occurs, what participants do, how the activity is planned, who is involved, and/or where the activities take place.