The students inquiries into the world drive their explorations. Teachers serve as resources and guides but let students obtain and analyze information largely in their own ways. As with traditional approaches to science education, LeTUS curricula begin with essential science content, such as the mechanisms of tectonic plate movement or the transfer of energy. The similarity ends there, however. In project-based science, students try to answer a driving question that has local and personal implications.
Students work to answer that question on their own, and all activities are geared toward doing so.
From the students perspective, their activities make sense as part of the project. Contextualizing content is an explicit goal of project-based science. In relating the questions to their own lives, students learn the science content they need to know, in this case, states of matter, the composition of air, and chemical reactions. Lessons, however, are not organized around objectives like learning chemistry principles. Rather, content objectives are met in the context of doing the project.