Ark of Inquiry
Project objectives
The Ark of Inquiry project centres around two closely related concepts: Responsible Research and Innovation (rri) and Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE). Ark of Inquiry aims at raising youth awareness to Responsible Research and Innovation (rri), as well as building a scientifically literate and responsible society through Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE).
To this aim, we have set clear objectives:
We aim to develop a pedagogical framework that promotes pupils’ awareness of rri and increases their awareness and understanding of conducting ‘real’ science.
We aim to collect existing inquiry-based activities and environments from various national and international projects that are related to rri aspects and make them widely available through the Ark of Inquiry platform.
We aim to build a large community consisting of 1 100 trained teachers and at least 100 science and teacher education students and 50 researchers from universities and science centres over Europe who will support learners’ inquiry-based activities and award their performance.
We aim to train at least 1 100 teachers to support pupils’ inquiry-based activities in a manner that attracts pupils’ interest and motivation towards science and rri.
We will develop instruments and collect data for evaluating the success and efficacy of the project to ensure that the pedagogical framework, the collected inquiry-based activities and the supporting community are all working to improve youth awareness towards rri.
We aim to make the inquiry-based activities available through a large-scale implementation of the Ark of Inquiry in Europe in order to bring together inquiry-based activities, learners and supporters (teachers, university students, researchers, staff of science centres, universities and museums).
At least 23 000 pupils and 1 100 teachers will participate in the project. To ensure sustainable application of the Ark of Inquiry beyond the end of the project, various dissemination activities will be planned.
