Digging deep

Learning through inquiry-based projects enables high school students at Science Leadership Academy (SLA) at City Center in Philadelphia to dig deep into the subject matter, says John Kamal, an engineering teacher at the school.

For example, instead of providing students the equation for how a pendulum moves, they create a pendulum, collect data, hypothesize about possible formulas that describe how a pendulum moves, debate the formulas and jointly reach a conclusion. “That’s how they learn the formula,” Kamal says. “That way, we believe students can understand the underlying principles of critical thinking and how science works.”