Diane Simmons Tomczak is Curriculum Coordinator at Ecole Internationale de Geneve, Pregny-Rigot campus, Geneva, Switzerland (TomczakRD@aol.com).
Inquiry-based learning focuses on the *process* of learning, not just *what* we learn, to enable students to gain the skills needed to become lifelong learners in interactive, cooperative, and collaborative situations. Do you know the difference between Inquiry or Enquiry? There isn't any, other than spelling, but using both will widen the selection of information you can access on the Internet. The U.S. English "inquiry-based" and British English "enquiry-based" will provide a vast array of Web sites from around the world; however, be selective because many are linked to the business world rather than education and sifting through them to find information that is useful for classroom use can take some time. These are a few of the more interesting and helpful Web sites I was able to locate.
Dr. Sylvia Chard at the University of Alberta in Canada maintains this site, which includes how to go about selecting suitable topics for inquiry-based learning, examples of projects from around the world, and links to resources that can help teachers understand and implement project-based learning. The site is connected to The ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education and includes digests written by Dr. Chard and Dr. Lilian Katz.
San Mateo County Schools in California have long been innovators in education, and this site is an excellent resource for learning more about project-based learning, like how to use it to assess student work and examples and ideas for including it in your classroom.
The IBO is a worldwide program that was started more than 25 years ago as a system of education without national bias for children ages 3-18 around the world. The Primary Years Program (PYP)for students ages 3-12 is the newest portion of the program. The PYP is dedicated to helping children become lifelong learners.
Project Zero's mission is to "understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines." This site includes research projects from Project Zero's graduate education program, including the Project Zero/International Schools Consortium Partnership and Teaching for Understanding--both of which aim to provide models to teach students to think critically and creatively.
This inquiry-based learning and teaching Web site includes planning strategies and information about asking good classroom questions. iWonder includes many links to activities, teaching tools, learning links, and other classroom resources.
This site, Make It Happen: Integrating Inquiry and Technology into the Middle School Curriculum, is based in Massachusetts and is dedicated to interdisciplinary learning. Judy Zorfass, author of the ASCD book *Teaching Middle School Students to Be Active Researchers,* and the Education Development Center are the developers of this Web site.
This outstanding San Francisco museum site includes inquiry activities, resources, and workshop information.
The Smithsonian Museums in Washington, D.C., provide lesson ideas that are well designed for a teacher beginning to use inquiry-based learning in the classroom.
From the United Kingdom, this site provides resources for primary and secondary education and links classrooms to resources used by schools in Britain. The site can also be useful to teachers outside of the United Kingdom.
The Ask Eric Virtual Library, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, has links to inquiry-based lesson plans.
Ms. Hos-McGrane's Grades 5 and 6 Student Projects on the Web contains a number of projects completed by students at the International School of Amsterdam. The site has incredibly useful links to resources that the students used to complete the projects. At the International School of Geneva , Pregny-Rigot campus, the Class 5 Journeys projects were inspired by the Amsterdam Grade 5 Pole to Pole project. This project encourages the children to work in teams to create travel companies to promote a journey they have devised that goes from pole to pole.
This Web site contains examples of hands-on, inquiry-based projects using small, controlled environments inside which students can test hypotheses and discover facts about the world around them.
*From Now On: The Educational Technology Journal* has "The Questioning Toolkit," under "Curriculum." This resource can help teachers develop projects and learn the questioning techniques students must learn to pursue inquiry-based learning.
This is another useful resource for developing questioning techniques.
Here are projects, information, and other resources for educators and students working on gardening and inquiry-based learning projects. Try out *GrowLab Indoor Garden-Based Science* and *Growing Ideas: A Journal of Garden-Based Learning.*
Jim Hirsch is the executive director of technology at the Plano, Texas, School District. Here, he has included a useful resource page for teachers looking for more examples of projects available on the Internet.
This page, from McLean, Virginia, links teachers to inquiry-based learning and assessment resources provided by this virtual school.
PROJECTS-L is a discussion group for teachers using the project approach. Participating teachers share ideas, projects, and assist each other in their attempts to use inquiry-based learning in the classroom. To subscribe to PROJECTS-L, send a one-line email that reads <subscribe PROJECTS-L (first name) (Last name)> to listserv@prostoffice.cso.uiuc.edu .