Enquiry timeline

The enquiry element follows on from the the teaching element. It starts at approximately week 10 in term 1 and lasts around 16 weeks - until students finish their enquiry project at the end of term 2. Project assessment needs to be submitted in term 3, in May.

Here is a rough timeline for the enquiry element, following the 5-step process for Investigation, Design and Research projects:

Week 1-2: Stage 1 - Ask

Investigation enquiry project: frame the question

Design enquiry project: how engineers define the problem, set criteria and constraints,

Research enquiry project: frame a socio-scientific issue

Students complete the project proposal form

Week 3-5: Stage 2 - Search

Investigation enquiry project: and use relevant models to hypothesise and make predictions

Design enquiry project: generate solutions

Research enquiry project: find and evaluate sources for reliability

Here, students focus on finding and evaluating sources, making hypotheses, predictions and designing experiments, or researching their problem and coming up with a solution. They will write the introduction and methods sections of their report,

Students start to update the activity log. 

Week 6-10: Stage 3 - Experiment/Build/Interpret

Investigation enquiry project: plan and collect data

Design enquiry project: create a prototype for testing the design

Research enquiry project: make sense of information and synthesise multiple sources into themes

This phase emphasises planning and carrying out experiments, with data collection and interpreting and analysing their data, or developing and testing a prototype for engineering. They carry out regular progress reviews and write the results section of their report, and update their activity log.

Week 10-12: Stage 4 - Interpret/Improve/Decide

Investigation enquiry project: how scientists analyse data and draw conclusions

Design enquiry project: optimise their design through iteration

Research enquiry project: look at different perspectives to come to informed judgement and build an argument

Week 13-16: Stage 5 - Report

Students write up their report and any supporting evidence, describing the scientific method, design or research process followed, their conclusions, and their evaluation. Optionally they can give a presentation on their findings.