Increasing student participation in science investigations in primary schools: the MyScience initiative

MyScience (www.myscience.edu.au) is a pioneering primary science initiative that uses a distinctive team approach, with primary teachers, primary students and volunteer mentor scientists working collaboratively as students conduct authentic scientific investigations to find answers to their own questions. The initiative is distinctive in that structures to support teacher professional learning, teaching and learning practices and school-community engagement are profoundly integrated in the underpinning educational model. MyScience takes advantage of external awards schemes as a motivational vehicle to bring participants together, providing a powerful setting for the development of common understandings about the purpose, level and quality of the scientific investigations that students conduct. Participation and evaluation data from a funded pilot indicates that the initiative has been successful in engaging students in quality scientific investigations in which they are empowered to make decisions in a science context and feel confident to discuss the learning associated with their work. Access to the underpinning educational model and key implementation resources will be freely available to all schools.