gie 2013

Iridescent has worked with professional scientists and engineers over the past seven years to develop innovative, project-based activities based on the research interests of those scientists. With 100+ such activities in it's catalog, Iridescent has developed a website called the Curiosity Machine to share those activities with others. The website has three components: 1) videos of scientists discussing their work in everyday language, 2) an open-ended design challenge, inspired by the scientist's videos, and 3) questions for students to answer as they build their response to the design challenge. As students answer questions on the website, they receive feedback on their answers from our community of scientists and engineers about the science in the design that they have built.

In this workshop, you will be introduced to Iridescent's style of inquiry-based learning, you will get to experience one of our design challenges from the Curiosity Machine, and you will practice some facilitation techniques for leading an open-ended design challenge. We will end with a opportunity for you to plan use of the Curiosity Machine in your schools, as well as discuss issues surrounding the use of the website in the classroom.