In the 21st century we are facing numerous unprecedented social, political, economic, health and environmental challenges. To produce innovative and creative solutions to these so called “wicked problems” we need to increase and democratise the knowledge creating capacity of our society (Rieckmann, 2012). In Education, there is an urgent need to design pedagogical practices, and create new learning opportunities to develop young people’s innovative capacity (Lai, 2014a). Instead of focusing on reproducing knowledge, students must be able to “actively interact with [knowledge]: to understand, critique, manipulate, create, and transform it” (Bolstad & Gilbert, 2008, p.39).

Knowledge Building promotes key principles which are designed to meet the growing need to re-imagine how schools meet emerging challenges. Scardamalia (2002) describes twelve key principles which together promote learning as a process based on curiosity, exploration and questioning, of improving ideas as a community of learners, and encouraging student ownership of the learning process and real world problem solving. It is a process that should be an integral part of the paradigm shift that needs to occur in education. It also places values such as “innovation, inquiry, and curiosity", identified as integral to the New Zealand Curriculum, at its very centre.