Research Quest is an engaging and powerful series of science investigations that improve students’ critical thinking skills.
Designed for middle school teachers and their students, Research Quest was created by the Natural History Museum of Utah with an all-star team of learning experts, university researcher scientists, museum professionals, and digital designers.
In each investigation, your students will engage with videos featuring our museum scientists. The videos will not only challenge your students with a real-world scientific mystery, they will also model how research scientists search for evidence and how they use critical thinking to answer scientific questions.
Next, your students will explore digitized museum collections and data to gather their own evidence for the research question at hand. Depending on the investigation, your class might observe the nooks and crannies of a 3D image scan of a dinosaur jaw or click on aerial photos of pine trees to explore the causes of bark beetle infestations. Throughout their work, your students will record their evidence and reasoning in their Research Quest notebooks, and test their ideas by sharing them with their classmates.
If you’re teaching science, Research Quest checks every box:
The reviews are overwhelmingly positive.
Want to learn more? Find out how a simple question started the Research Quest journey, or check out which Research Quest investigations are right for you and your students.
Kamie Fultz, University School of Milwaukee, 6th gradeThis is one of the best, if not THE BEST, most complete new resource that I have encountered in the past few years. I spend an inordinate amount of time searching online for new ideas and tools to help engage my students in science and help them to become critical thinkers and problem-solvers.