TEMI, Teaching Enquiry with Mysteries Incorporated, is an EU-funded FP7 project aimed at encouraging inquiry-based science education. The project was coordinated by Queen Mary College, London and the University of Limerick was one of the 12 European partners. The UL team was led by Dr Peter Childs and the project ran from 2013 to 2106. The project was based around the delivery of CPD workshops to six cohorts of teachers, who each did two workshops separated by 8-10 weeks. In between the workshops teachers were asked to try out 5 TEMI ideas (from a bank of ideas) and to devise two TEMI lessons themselves. The project focuses on the use of mysteries or discrepant events to engage students and introduce inquiry using the 5E model. There is also an emphasis on showmanship and the gradual release of responsibility model, to transfer ownership of inquiry to the students. The Irish workshops involved 53 teachers in 30 schools and 11 pre-service science teachers from UL. In addition, several short ‘taster’ workshops have been given to Irish science teachers e.g. at the recent ISTA conference in Limerick we gave two workshops to a total of 57 teachers.
A contingent of Irish teachers went to the final TEMI Conference in Leiden, where they took part in workshops and lectures, a science fair, and met teachers from the other partners. The photo shows the Irish group at the science fair. The teachers came back with lots of new ideas and new friends.
The latest issue of Chemistry in Action! (#107, Spring 2016) is a special issue on the TEMI project and as well as reviewing the achievements of the project, has lots of TEMI ideas for engaging students. This should be in schools in early May.
The Irish team at the Leiden conference
The Irish stand at the Leiden Science Fair
Cover of the special issue