Can investigative practical work in high school biology foster creativity?

Creativity is recognised as a valuable human quality for personal, social, technological and economic reasons and many school curriculum documents assert that creativity can be taught. In science education it is often argued that it is through engagement in practical work that students develop their possibility thinking and problem solving abilities. This paper uses data generated during a four-year study of students engaged in open investigative practical work in senior biology to indicate how such engagement might foster personal and collaborative creativity.