Inquiry-based Learning

Inquiry-based learning involves the student engaging in authentic, self-directed learning. Often inquiry-based learning is collaborative. Ideally the instructor is the facilitator of the learning experiences. In more guided inquiry experiences the instructor sets initial parameters and students follow a line of inquiry tied to the parameters.

When using inquiry-based learning with your students consider the following:

What are your learning goals for students?
What knowledge, skills and/or dispositions do you want students to gain from this learning experience?
What do you, as the instructor, need to be done prior to introducing students to their learning experience?
What will you do to support students in their learning experience, especially if they get stuck?
How will you and your students measure growth in learning?
Will students work independently or in groups?
How will students share their learning and/or progress with each other?

Examples of inquiry-based learning include, but are not limited to:

Project-based learning
Problem-based learning
Design-based learning
Laboratories

Feel free to browse different examples of lessons and activities that highlight inquiry-based learning.

Title

Preview

CI Reports
Both of these reports should be well-structured, with introductions, body and conclusions.

Review of a current (major) engineering challenge and why it’s important to society today. Stories taken from current news and events, and popular magazines (Popular Science, Science, Nature, Scientific American, New Scientist, Time, US News and World Reports, etc) related to major engineering challenges facing society today.

Ethics position paper (PDF). This position paper will convey your personal opinion relating to the ethical dilemma presented in an assigned reading. You will not be graded on your opinion, but how you convince the reader that your opinion is valid and should be considered. This should be approximately 2 pages
Paper Three

For this paper, you may choose your own topic, so long as it is about the cultural, political, religious, and / or economic dimensions of biological science—in short, so long as it is about matters we have discussed in class.
Term Project

The purpose of the term projects is to research and study an energy conversion technology in greater depth than possible in class. The project should incorporate thermodynamic analysis if dealing with thermal energy as well as the energy source/fuel, methods of conversion, targeted power range, political and economic constraints, and competing technologies. A technical report and a presentation session will be the final deliverables for the project.
Final Project

Each student is expected to research, present, and write-up a final project. The presentations will be about 15 minutes long and take place during the last three class sessions. The final project write-up should be about 15 pages long (other formats possible for non-standard projects—see instructor for permission).
Term Project

Household to global scale term projects on water, climate change and health solutions will be developed in teams or individually. You and your team decide on the format—a model, a video, a website, an app, a proposal, an artistic expression, a research paper, a competition entry. This can take any form.
Dream Project/Term Project Proposal

The proposal describes your dream project. The proposal is your opportunity to detail the scope of your project, its context, what you need to make this happen, your timeline and milestones, who are your teammates if you have teammates, or if you are planning to proceed individually.

In the first deliverable, it does not need to be a fully formed proposal but a rough first draft. There’s no specific page requirement, but 4 to 8 pages of text total, or perhaps 10+ PowerPoint slides might be a good length.
Dream Project Exercise
Take an index card, and prepare a short summary.

Step 1 (on side 1 of the index card): Describe your dream project (drawing from any combo of disciplines, any scale, however far-fetched or down-to-earth).

Dream project name/title

Dream project summary (50 words maximum)

What else do you need to make this dream a reality?

If you don’t have a dream project yet, describe a sector or geographical area in which you would like to be focused.

Step 2 (on side 2 of the index card): Get yourself recruited into a Dream Team! What are your special gifts?

Reason a team should want to recruit you—ie., your special skills and capabilities (50 words maximum)

Types of project sought

Does your dream project fit in the Drawdown and/or 2020 framework?
Drawdown

Browse the Drawdown solutions and pick one that interests you. Come prepared to class to present that solution, either informally (sitting at your seat and just talking) or formally (preparing some slides for class presentation, and/or some related material you have dug up on that solution). Your presentation might take 5 minutes or so.
Tutorials

The tutorial is an opportunity to pick a topic of your choice from the universe of topics pertaining to the subjects of water, climate change, and health and share that with the class. The tutorial will be undertaken either with one teammate, or individually. It can be done in any format of your choice, with creative, non-traditional pedagogies (eg. demos, games, workshops, other activities) most welcome.

There will be roughly one tutorial per week.
Graduate Course Project

Each graduate student taking this class for credit should decide on a term-project. We ask for a 10-page written report (maximum length), and a 20 minute oral presentation to the class before the end of term. Undergraduates do not have to give an oral report (but may, if they wish) and a six-page paper is acceptable. Projects can expand on something covered in class, or be some climate-relevant project not touched upon. In the past, most such projects have been reviews of some interesting topics. A few students have succeeded in doing an original piece of work, but this is certainly not a requirement.