Free Inquiry Project #1 – Chess.

Chess has been around for 1,500 years and is one of the most widely enjoyed games in the world. Chess dismantles gender, class, physical ability and any other barrier imaginable in other sports. Chess allows players to compete on the most even playing field that I know.

I learned how to play chess at a really young age with my mother and took a brief hiatus of around 14 years before picking It up again in 2022. Since then, it has been a common pastime for myself, and it is something I have a passion for. I chose chess as my inquiry project for a couple of reasons. Of course, I enjoy playing it, but I also believe it exemplifies the core competencies of creative thinking and critical reflective thinking, and I also believe chess can be a valuable tool in a classroom to help foster critical thinking and creativity.

Goals for this Inquiry.

Improve my Chess ability:

Because I mostly play chess online, I have a strong idea of what my ability is due to chess.com tracking players’ ELO (the skill ranking system used in chess). I am currently at a 402 ELO; this isn’t very good, but I hope to improve this to a 500 by the end of the project. I plan on doing this by playing daily, completing the puzzles designed to help with board awareness, and using the online coaches.

Learn how to use chess in the classroom:

As stated earlier, one of the reasons I chose chess for this project is I hope to incorporate it into my classrooms when I become a teacher. Chess is proven to increase student’s cognitive ability, as shown in this meta-analysis, and I hope to learn how to harness this and apply it effectively to future students. I plan on trying to find a way to incorporate art, math, critical thinking and problem-solving into a project that can be used to teach and play chess, as well as the best way to teach chess to beginners.