Giving children the power to be scientists

Children who are taught how to think and act like scientists develop a clearer understanding of the subject.

A collaborative research project by the OU and The University of Nottingham has shown that school children who took the lead in investigating science topics of interest to them gained an understanding of good scientific practice.

The study showed that this method of ‘personal inquiry’ could be used to help children develop the skills needed to weigh up misinformation in the media, understand the impact of science and technology on everyday life and make better personal decisions on issues including diet, health and their own effect on the environment.

The three-year ‘Personal Inquiry’ project involved providing pupils aged 11 to 14 at a school in Nottingham and another in Milton Keynes with a new computer toolkit named nQuire. Running on both desktop PCs and handheld notebook-style devices, the software lesson plan – guiding the pupils through devising and planning scientific experiments, collecting and analysing data and discussing the results.

The flexible nature of the toolkit meant that children could become ‘science investigators’, starting an enquiry in the classroom, collecting data in the playground, a local nature reserve or even at home, and then sharing and analysing their findings back in class.

The project has been supported by ScienceScope and funded with £1.2 million from the ESRC and the EPSRC Technology Enhanced Learning Research Programme. The nQuire software is now available to teachers and schools as an Open Source application, available for free download at www.nquire.org.uk.

www.pi-project.ac.uk