All children have a natural curiosity about the world around them and how it works. Inquiry education is very empowering for middle school children because they can take ownership of their learning by constructing knowledge for themselves, with the guidance of their teachers, through exploration within a meaningful context. Middle school students are social individuals, and benefit from learning through working in cooperative groups engaged in the inquiry process by practicing social skills and putting the idea of ‘team work’ to use in order to meet a common goal. Inquiry based instruction addresses the needs of students of all learning styles, interests, and backgrounds, enabling students to expand their knowledge and skills in the content areas within a meaningful context. In addition, the Math & Science faculty use entry -level data, baseline assessments and portfolio development in order to identify student needs and implement differentiated instruction to support student learning.
Exploring and learning occurs both in and out of the classroom. We support experiential-based learning experiences, collaborating with informal math and science institutions to provide children with opportunities to investigate and expand their understanding of the world around them. It is our goal is to lay the foundation for creative approaches to real-life inquiries in math and science by providing children with the mathematical and scientific process skills necessary for problem solving. Through engaging in activities that simulate the roles of mathematician and scientist, students work collaboratively to develop/identify questions, hypothesize, design action plans for further exploration/problem solving, collect qualitative and quantitative data and draw conclusions. We aim to develop and nurture students’ critical thinking and problem solving skills.