LASAR (Learning about Science and Religion) is a research and outreach centre that seeks to discover and extend university and school students’ expressed curiosity and ways of reasoning about ‘big questions’ that bridge science, religion and the wider humanities (see www.canterbury.ac.uk/lasar). We produce a regular LASAR update with news and links to resources. To join our email list please email lasar@canterbury.ac.uk. The Director of LASAR is Berry Billingsley, Professor of Science Education at Canterbury Christ Church university (berry.billingsley@canterbury.ac.uk).

The Epistemic Insight Initiative involves eight Higher Education institutions, led by Canterbury Christ Church University, with funding from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, the Royal Academy of Engineering, The National Collaborative Outreach Programme and All Saints Education Trust. The LASAR (Learning about Science and Religion) team and the Faculty of Education have been awarded more than £1.5 million to carry out the research.

Big Questions are questions about the nature of reality and human personhood and they are also questions that bridge science, religion and the wider humanities. Some of the questions discussed today are whether robots can and do make good companions, whether life and the universe are intended to exist and whether genetic engineering can and should be used to make better people. These are questions that stimulate significant technological and scholarly advances and where the conclusions and outputs affect the lives of individuals and society.

These questions are frequently squeezed out of formal education because they do not fit inside single-discipline subject boxes and further are widely perceived to be controversial. Further, there is a basis to say that the impacts of entrenched compartmentalisation on students’ reasoning are largely hidden – because assessment tends to focus only on students’ progress within each subject. If a question does not have an agreed answer or even at this point a template in education for producing an answer, what can teachers expect and evaluate in students’ responses to know that progress has been made – and in which subjects.

The Epistemic Insight initiative is designed to enable researchers, tutors, student teachers and teachers to work together to understand and address gaps, confusions and misperceptions in students’ opportunities and understanding.

The research will develop and test strategies to engage school students in more dialogue about Big Questions, find ways to build their understanding of different types of disciplinary knowledge and help students to explore ways that areas of knowledge interact to address questions that bridge subjects and disciplines.

We will be constructing and evaluating a progression of learning objectives and example activities for each key stage. We expect the research outputs to include a Framework for Education for primary and secondary schools and teacher education. The Framework seeks to explain, key stage by key stage, how to develop students’ expressed curiosity and their capacities to be wise about how knowledge is and can be formed and tested within subjects and across them. The EI framework for Education is designed to link the curriculum intent of individual subjects into a joined-up approach for primary and secondary schools that will enable young people to:

• Develop their curiosity and capacity to express questions that bridge disciplines and subjects including Big Questions (questions about the nature of reality and personhood that bridge science, religion and the wider humanities)
• Explain the characteristics, potential and limitations of a range of disciplines and areas of knowledge, how they interact to inform our thinking about different types of questions and why the framing of questions matters.
• Design, carry out and evaluate enquiries that demonstrate a growing ability to think more deeply, compassionately and critically about Big Questions.

The Initiative launched on Thursday May 16th 2019 at Canterbury Christ Church University with an event for school and university students called, Big Questions Day.

Strength of spaghetti

The egg experiment