Raising standards through inquiry-based science education (IBSE)--what are the challenges for pre-service teacher education? What do ongoing teachers and active teachers learn from each other when planning, conducting and evaluating minds-on and hands-on IBSE activities in the classroom? What do they learn "beyond" IBSE? The Bremen teacher education course "INQUIRE for Teacher Students--inquiry-based learning in the context of biodiversity loss and climate change" aims to raise standards in teacher education using IBSE methods in an innovative manner. Science educators, botanists and botanic garden educators support Learning Communities of ongoing and active teachers in the development of IBSE school projects for students of the lower secondary level. The evaluation the course measures the professional growth of the participating teacher students regarding their PCK and subject knowledge, the successfulness of the Learning Communities and the implementation of the course in the regular teacher education program. The course is part of the European FW7 project INQUIRE (http://www.inquirebotany.org/en).