• To whom?
  

The competition is open to all classes in comprehensive schools in Finland. The entire class participates in the competition together, individual students cannot participate. The competition has two categories: primary schools and secondary schools. Competition questions can be submitted in Finnish, Swedish and English.

• What are we asking?
  

Each participating class sends three science-related questions to Heureka. The questions can be used to approach familiar things from new perspectives or turn familiar thinking patterns on their head. Insight and thinking outside the box are more important than who comes up with the most difficult question.

Questions must be developed together by the class and be the result of shared reflections. Questions should demonstrate curiosity, ingenuity, and a desire to understand the world. An individual question can be short or long, but it must be well thought out.

• How does this relate to teaching?
  

Questions can be considered, for example, in environmental studies, biology, geography and physics classes. Students can be divided into small groups, each of which is given their own overarching themes from which to start considering questions. Such themes can include, for example, space, the ice age, climate change and evolution. The groups present their ideas to the others, and finally the class decides together which questions to send. Questions can also be considered as part of multidisciplinary learning units.

• How do I get involved?
  

Competition questions are submitted to Heureka via the form on the competition page. Questions can be in written form or as videos. If your question is a video, please only include a link to the video in question form. The teacher acts as the class contact person and ensures that the questions are student-generated.

• How can competition be easily integrated into teaching?
  

Depending on the grade level, the questions can be considered in environmental studies, biology, geography, physics or history classes, for example. The competition is also works well for multidisciplinary learning units. Awaken curiosity in your students and encourage them, for example, to familiarize themselves with Helsingin Sanomat's "Lasten tiedekysymykset" and watch "Lasten tiedeuutiset" or browse various information and textbooks. After this, the students can go into small groups and start considering questions they find interesting, raised by the background material. Then they can look for answers to the questions together. Finally, the questions from the small groups are listed on the board/screen for the whole class to see.

After this, the questions that you want to send to the competition can be jointly selected through an internal class vote, or alternatively, the questions to which the students were unable to find answers can be selected.

• Participation in the competition in a nutshell:
  

1. Awaken curiosity through non-fiction books, science questions, or children's news.
2. Discussion of interesting questions in small groups.
3. Search for answers in pairs/small groups to previously created questions.
4. Selection of competition questions: Questions that could not be answered or questions that the class found most interesting are submitted to the competition.

• Schedule
  

The competition runs from 13.1.–28.2.2025. During March, the Heureka's jury will evaluate all questions submitted during the competition period and select the finalists and the categories deserving an honorable mention. The results will be announced at the end of March and the winning category of each series will be notified personally. The winning categories will receive the title of “Finland’s Most Curious Class” and get a certificate of honor, as well as a free visit to Heureka with transportation. The date and arrangements for the trip will then be made. The trip must take place before the end of the spring semester 2025.

• Evaluation criteria
  

Curiosity and creativity: How surprising and diverse are the questions?

Collaboration: Is it clear that the entire class has participated?

Insight: Do the questions demonstrate a desire to learn and understand?

The questions will be evaluated by a panel of experts from various fields at Heureka and guest teacher participants.

• Privacy Statement

Participants' information will only be used in connection with the competition and will be processed in accordance with Heureka's privacy statement .

• Terms of use and permission to use the material
  

Heureka may publish questions submitted to the competition and raise the themes they present on the Finland's Most Curious Class competition page or on its own social media channels. Any publication of questions or use of parts of them on social media channels will take place after the competition question submission period has ended. The publication will be made without mentioning the names of individual students or teachers.