Reimagining student-driven learning
OpenCitizen is an eight-week educational program empowering students to become intentional thinkers and community-driven innovators through structured, inquiry-based problem-solving that involves:
- Problem selection and ownership: Students develop critical thinking by selecting topics that genuinely inspire them.
- Research: Deep, collaborative investigation builds foundational knowledge and research skills.
- Project planning: Strategic planning teaches project management and goal-setting fundamentals.
- Project operations: Hands-on execution develops real-world problem-solving capabilities.
- Learning and reflection: Timely reflection transforms empirical experience into lasting wisdom.
Educator benefits
- Engage students through a curiosity-driven process.
- Develop 21st-century skills that apply to any subject matter.
- Connect classroom learning to real-world impact.
- Help your students earn college credit.
OpenCitizen is ideal for:
- Middle and high school classrooms.
- Project-based learning environments.
- Educators seeking transformative teaching approaches.
College credit options
Schools and classrooms can opt in to have their high school students enroll for ASU college credit through the OpenCitizen program via the Universal Pathways Program.
Interested in bringing OpenCitizen to your school? Please contact us for more information.
Engage your students with space topics
Check out ASU’s Space Futures Forward in the Classroom and put OpenCitizen into action.
Along with rich content and resources to get students to ask great questions, you will find profound questions for your students to engage with, such as:
- How can space boost prosperity around the world?
- What might we discover and invent when gravity gets dialed back?
- How will people really react to life on other planets?
Teacher professional development
Get training on inquiry-based learning techniques and how to facilitate the OpenCitizen process in your classrooms with our teacher professional development course, designed in collaboration with the ASU Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.
OpenCitizen news
OpenCitizen prepares high school students for a future driven by curiosity
This program allows the next generation of scholars and leaders to apply open-inquiry learning to problems they’re passionate about—all while earning college credit.
OpenCitizen project holds 2nd annual gathering for education changemakers
Participants walked away with new ways to innovate with inquiry learning in their classrooms.
OpenCitizen Gathering brings together thinkers to solve complex problems
The first-ever OpenCitizen Gathering brought together an exciting group of thinkers and doers to explore a common challenge: how to enable community-based teams to problem-solve in today’s complex world.
Frequently asked questions
Inquiry-based learning is a dynamic learning framework that:
- Identifies existing knowledge.
- Reveals knowledge gaps.
- Generates research hypotheses.
- Enables flexible, student-centered exploration.
- Focuses on learner-driven discovery.
OpenCitizen balances instructor guidance with student autonomy and develops critical transferable skills, such as:
- Leadership.
- Consensus-building.
- Research methodology.
- Communication.
- Project management.
Individual high school students via ASU Universal Pathways.
School and classroom groups.
Teams or individual learners.
Interested in bringing OpenCitizen to your school. Connect here or email interplanetary@asu.edu