Student Inquiry in Action - from the Original Idea to the Bench

Inquiry is the dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlement and coming to know and understand the world. As such, it is a stance that pervades all aspects of life and is essential to the way in which knowledge is created.

For several years now, the Belmonte Science Laboratory Center of the Hebrew University has been holding an inquiry learning program that combines work with middle school teachers and their students. The main objective of our inquiry program is to stimulate students to independently raise research questions without limiting them to a particular subject or discipline.

The process begins with teachers working with their students to choose a suitable subject. This subject derives from a question, problem or exploration that has meaning to the students. The teachers then present the selected topics to the University staff, and together they process the idea into a feasible experimental plan. Finally, the students come to our laboratories, which offer advanced equipment, where they carry out a series of experiments according to their previous plan. The process ends with the presentation of the experiment results in the form of a scientific poster.

Some examples of actual Inquiry questions posed by students have been:

How does hair coloring influence the strength of the hair?

What is the effect of green tea on kidney stones?

What is the effect of acidic foods on the decomposition of gluten?