Petra Skiebe-Corrette holds a doctorate in neurobiology and completed her habilitation (German equivalent of associate professor) in 2002. She is director of NatLab, an informal science laboratory at the Freie Universität Berlin which offers both primary school pupils and high school students the opportunity to perform up-to-date inquiry-based experiments in biology and chemistry which have been conceived by scientists.

She also initiated a network of the informal science laboratories in the German states Berlin and Brandenburg (“GenaU”). She has been the German representative for three European Union grants: “Scienceduc” in 2003, “POLLEN” in 2004 and “Fibonacci” in 2010, all of which promote inquiry-based science and/or math education within Europe. In order to support inquiry-based science education within primary schools on a long term basis, “TuWaS!” (Technik und Naturwissen¬schaften an Schulen, Technology and Science in Schools) was founded in 2007 as a cooperation between the Freie Universität Berlin and the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Currently, TuWaS! is serving over 140 schools in four different German states. Within the “Fibonacci” project, TuWaS! cooperates with three countries: Luxembourg, Austria and Turkey. Prof. Skiebe-Correttte also served on the advisory boards of the National Science Resources Center in Washington, D.C., and of the LernortLabor Bundesverband der Schülerlabore e.V., an association supporting informal science laboratories within Germany.