Creative Inquiry, formerly known as 'Undergraduate Research,' includes all intensive, discovery-oriented approaches to learning. Emphasis is placed on providing an experience that will be meaningful to undergraduate students, and will promote reasoning and critical thinking skills, ethical judgment, and communication skills as well as a deep understanding of the methods of scientific and/or humanities research.
Projects are developed with the goal of developing students' capacities to find, analyze, and evaluate information. Design projects, applied research, service-learning activities, and visual and performing arts projects are considered part of this effort, as well as basic research.
InsideHigherEd.com explored the Creative Inquiry program in the article "Small Group Learning for 14,000 Undergrads."
During the 2007-08 academic year, student teams are studying an array of topics, including the following:
- Inventory of Insects in the Clemson Experimental Forest
- An Oral History of Oconee County Veterans
- Driving Behaviors in Rural Areas
- Developing Clemson's Solar Decathlon team
- Equine Therapy
- The Decameron Project
- The Five Second Rule (requires free login to The New York Times)