The project question or goal must be one that it requires the student to engage in an intentional and thorough course of inquiry and action. (arcadiacharterschool.org)
On your second point: the cost - effectiveness of the program is certainly a legitimate course of inquiry. (slaw.ca)
Whilst an attempt to apply chaos theory to climate may not yield anything useful in the short term, it seems to me to be by far the most likely course of inquiry to eventually make sense of the vast array of interactive elements within such an apparently chaotic system. (judithcurry.com)