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Identification: Deborah Hazen, Lansdowne Friends School, 110 N. Lansdowne Avenue., Lansdowne, PA

Specific Aim / Goal: I plan to support students in developing a series of open ended transactional inquiries. Pre-college students frequently see science as something that someone else does and expect that their engagement with science is as memorizers and reproducers of facts. This makes science a competitive sport with the end goal being the pursuit of a series of right answers. I would like students to leave my class with a sense that science is a way of thinking, a type of curiosity, and and transactional process that benefits from increased social dialogue around questions and ideas.

 Proposal: To accomplish my goal, students need the resources and time to develop inquiries that are both related to the curriculum and really matter to them. They will have ample opportunity to design an inquiry related to one of our science units this year, either during our study of space, bio-engineered foods, brain and behavior, and crime lab chemistry.

Equipment: The $300 will be used to purchase supplies through Carolina Biological Supply that will allow student groups to conduct their inquiries. Any remaining dollars will contribute toward the purchase of a flip video camera so that student groups can document and share their work.