ARK OF INQUIRY · Ark of Inquiry: Inquiry Awards for Youth over Europe

The Ark of Inquiry project aims to raise youth awareness to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) by providing young European citizens (7 to 18-year-olds) with a pool of engaging inquiry activities to improve their inquiry skills, increase their awareness and understanding of conducting ‘real’ science, and prepare them to participate in different roles in the European research and innovation process. In order to achieve these aims, the project will 1) develop a framework for identifying inquiry activities that promote pupils’ awareness of RRI; 2) collect existing inquiry activities and environments from various national and international projects; 3) make the activities available across Europe through the Ark of Inquiry platform in order to bring together inquiry activities, learners, and supporters (teachers, science and teacher education students, and staff of universities and science centres); 4) train at least 1 100 teachers to support pupils’ inquiry activities in a manner that attracts pupils’ interest and motivation towards RRI; and 5) implement the inquiry activities on a large-scale across a European school network. During the project at least 23 000 students will participate in the Ark of Inquiry. After completing a particular set of inquiry activities the pupils can apply for an Inquiry Award. A large community consisting of 1 100 trained teachers and at least 100 science and teacher education students and 50 researchers from universities and science centres over Europe will support learners’ inquiry activities and award their performance. Based on evaluation results the Ark of Inquiry platform will be made available for the whole of Europe. The platform will connect formal learning settings and curricula to centres for science and research, so that generations of scientists can meet each other. This project helps build a society skilled in RRI and related scientific communication.