<![CDATA[Critical thinking skills are an essential competency that must be developed starting in elementary school as a cornerstone of 21st-century learning. However, according to the 2022 PISA report, the level of critical thinking among students in Indonesia remains in the low category. Therefore, there is a need to implement a learning model capable of facilitating student engagement in discovering concepts through structured guidance. This study aims to assess how primary school students' IPAS critical thinking abilities are improved and impacted by using the Guided Inquiry methodology with the help of the Energy Change Simulation Application. This quasi-experimental quantitative research with a non-equivalent control group design involved 40 fourth-grade elementary school students divided into an experimental class (n = 20) and a control class (n = 20). The research instruments included a valid (0.81) and reliable (0.90) critical thinking essay test, as well as an observation sheet. The research results showed that the experimental class obtained an average N-Gain of 0.60 (medium category), higher than the control class with 0.3582 (medium category). The results of the independent sample t-test confirmed a statistically significant difference in improvement (t = 0.000, p < 0.05). Furthermore, the simple linear regression analysis obtained an R2 value of 0.608 (p < 0.05), indicating that the guided inquiry learning model assisted by energy change simulation applications contributes 60.8% to students' critical thinking skills. In conclusion, the integration of energy change simulation applications in Guided Inquiry has proven effective and serves as a practical strategy for elementary school teachers to concretize abstract science concepts while enhancing students' higher-order thinking skills. Keywords: Guided Inquiry, Energy Change Simulation Application, Critical Thinking]]>
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