What's more, the teachers will hone these new skills by working with some 150 volunteer middle-school students, giving them both experience in using the scientific process and a chance to have fun learning science. The kids read from the textbooks, answer questions at the end of chapters, learn vocabulary words - in short, they do a lot of rote stuff. That just isn't what science is.
Science is a process of inquiry.
According to this approach, the student is an empty vessel, and the teacher stands in front of the class pouring forth all this knowledge. And the expectation is that the student instantly grasps it, can apply it and becomes a full vessel. But few people really learn that way. Almost everybody learns far more by actively grappling with a problem, by actually handling objects, seeing them, feeling them, tasting them - by totally immersing themselves in a problem. The teams are challenged to deduce what might be hidden in the box by asking questions that can be answered by experimentation - for example, moving the box in different ways and listening for telltale sounds.