"Learning Science is something students do,

not something that is done to them."

National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996, p.20)

The Inquiry Institute has developed numerous science courses for pre-service and in-service teachers, that use an inquiry pedagogy as the main teaching strategy. This follows the recommendations by the National Science Education Standards that teachers should learn science in the same manner that they will be expected to teach it. Therefore, all course instructors actively model hands-on, minds-on science teaching for students.

Some of the courses explicitly use the 5E Learning Cycle as a format to carry out the inquiry investigations.  In this lesson plan model based on Constructivist Learning Theory, students begin with considering their own prior knowledge, gain new experiences with natural phenomena and relate their learning to other real world experiences.  In the first phase of the lesson plan, Engage, the teachers and students work together to plan how to answer an explorable question based on student ideas. In the Explore phase, students conduct the investigation to collect data to answer the question.  In the next phase, Explain, students share their results and develop conclusions to understand "what happened" in the exploration as well as "why it happened."  In Extend, the concept is applied to real world examples or connections to similar concepts.  The Evaluate phase should provide students a chance to demonstrate what they learned rather than simply repeat vocabulary or memorized definitions.

In addition to changing the pedagogy, the inquiry-based science courses reduced the "mile-wide, inch deep" content from a traditional survey course to a select set of key concepts based upon the Michigan Curriculum Framework and more recently the Grade Level Content Expectations for K-7 Science.

Three courses were developed for all pre-service elementary teachers: 

• NSCI 231-Learning by Inquiry Physical Science
• NSCI 232-Learning by Inquiry Earth/Planetary Science
• NSCI 233-Learning by Inquiry Life Science

Three courses were developed for pre-service elementary teachers that elect to major or minor in Integrated Science: 

• NSCI 331-Learning by Inquiry Physical Science II
• NSCI 332-Learning by Inquiry-Michigan Earth Science
• NSCI 333-Learning by Inquiry Problem-Based Learning in Life Science

Three graduate level courses were developed for in-service teachers in the Master of Science in Science Education (MSSE): 

• NSCI 531-Learning by Inquiry Physical Sciences
• NSCI 532-Learning by Inquiry Earth Sciences
• NSCI 533-Learning by Inquiry Life Sciences