You may have heard of project-based learning but what’s this inquiry-based education all about?  Is it new? At Innovations Academy (IA), a tuition-free K-8 public school in San Diego, we’ve been using inquiry-based learning since opening our doors in 2008 and cherish how students develop a love of learning by using it. And projects are only one form of inquiry. Confused? We explain it here!

Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning focuses on the process of discovery and can take many forms. Centered around the natural curiosity of children, learning can go in many different directions as they explore, depending on what they want or need to know and what they learn during the process. Students keep asking questions and understanding content through inquiry. 

Inquiry is not so much seeking the right answer—because often there is none or there are many—but rather seeking appropriate resolutions to questions and issues. Inquiry is multi-disciplinary and cross-curricular. A project based exploration is one form of inquiry based learning, but there are many other forms as well. 

Project-Based Learning

Project-based learning (PBL) is one form of inquiry learning but is focused on an outcome while the overarching defining characteristic of inquiry based learning is through the questioning process. Project based learning is hands-on but with a definitive result at the end. Students work and investigate to respond to a question, problem or challenge. Students are active participants in their educational process and are able to connect ideas and concepts together in engaging ways with a conclusion, often tied to a real world product or result. 

Using Inquiry and Project-Based Learning at Innovations Academy

Innovations Academy uses inquiry-based project learning as well as other inquiry methods creating a campus-wide exploratory approach to learning. Subjects are integrated as students seek to answer essential questions and develop a voice and self-expression unique to their learning process. The thinking is deep and the student work is significant and meaningful. It involves reflection and evaluation and drives so much of what we do here at Innovations Academy. 

Students are actively engaged in exploring content areas and developing skills through these hands-on interactive approaches that incorporate individual time, small group time and centers. Interactive learning is learning by doing. It involves students in a total learning experience that enhances their ability to think critically and create; always unique to their ideation and imagining. 

Exploring, building and doing allow our K-8 students to work at levels that challenge them as individuals. We emphasize the importance of the student being actively involved in the learning process by utilizing a variety of materials and providing many choices for learning. Some samples of interactive learning:

• Exploratory Learning Centers
• Socratic Seminars
• Play, Painting, Pottery
• Problem Solving
• Experimentation
• Debate
• Drama, Theater, Improvisation, Song
• Building, Creating, Construction

Our tuition-free K-8 projects are highly academic. Our students are asked to think deeply, to construct questions as well as to develop answers and work on complex tasks. During our projects our students are challenged to create original products, interview professional experts, apply skills through field study and work with a variety of people.

Every year, our small school community hosts two big Exhibition Nights, where students formally exhibit their work to each other, their parents and the community-at-large. We consider this evaluation of work more important than a report card as students share how they arrived at a result. Whether you are a parent or community member interested in inquiry-directed project-based learning, you are invited to come for the excitement.

When you use inquiry-based learning, you open a world of possibility that teaches far more than just a default result. Join our forward-thinking school where we teach kids how to think, not what to think. Connect with Innovations Academy and enroll now for Fall 2025! 

About Innovations Academy:

Innovations Academy is a tuition-free public charter school serving kindergarten through eighth grade in San Diego, California. Our small school values a hands-on, inquiry-based education with high academic standards using self-expression, compassionate connection, and purposeful learning. Our new modern campus is intentionally designed with curiosity and exploration in mind. Join our innovative school today!  Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Find us at innovationsacademy.org.