Creativity is valuable in education because it builds cognitive complexity. Creativity relies on having deep knowledge and being able to use it effectively. Being creative involves using an existing set of knowledge or skills in a particular subject or context to experiment with new possibilities in the pursuit of valued outcomes, thus increasing both knowledge and skills. It develops over time and is more successful if the creative process begins at a point where people have at least some knowledge and skills. To continue the earlier example of the ramp, a student rolling a ball down an incline may notice that the ball goes faster if they increase the incline, and slower if they decrease it. This discovery may lead to other possibilities – the student might then go on to observe how far the ball rolls depending on the angle of the incline, and then develop some sort of target for the ball to reach. What started as play has developed in a way that builds the student’s knowledge, skills and reasoning. It represents the beginning of the scientific method of trial and error in experimentation.

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