What is Project-Based Inquiry Science?

Students Learn Like Scientists and Engineers 

• Based on research in the cognitive and learning sciences. 

• Developed through rigorous, iterative, research-based cycles. 

• Integrates science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. 

• Big Questions and Big Challenges guide instruction and organize learning progressions. 

• Collaborative groups engage in rigorous science discourse. 

• Students design investigations, generate data, assess the trustworthiness of their data, make claims, and justify claims with evidence-based explanations.

Engineering and Science Go Hand-in-Hand 

The individual units present three types of projects: 

• Solving an engineering problem: Students are presented with a realistic community scenario and a problem they need to address. 

• Addressing an engineering design challenge: Students iteratively design, build, and test a device. 

• Answering a Driving Question: Students answer a complex science question about a phenomenon that has real-world implications.