Sharing good practices from European Science education projects: XploreHealth, UnischooLabS as part of the Scientix platform

Sharing Good Practice From European Science Education Projects: XploreHealth and Unischoolabs as Part of the Scientix Platform

Premysl Velek - Agueda Gras-Velazquez - Barbara Schwarzenbacher - Evita Tasiopoulou

European Schoolnet, Belgium

8 June 2012 | EDEN Annual Conference | Porto, Portugal

Network of 30 Ministries of Education in Europe:

• Support schools in bringing about the best use of technology in learning

• Promote the European dimension in schools and education

Mission: To improve the quality of education in Europe

Transforming Education in Europe

www.eun.org

Scientix is financed under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development

Started in 2009

Managed by EUN on behalf of the European Commission

European science, maths and technology projects



Scientix facilitates dissemination and sharing of best

practices in science and maths education in Europe: • Scientix portal: www.scientix.eu

• European Conference, 6-8 May 2011, Brussels

• Workshops for teachers and/or researchers in STEM

education




Resource repository


On-demand translation of teaching materials



Online courses:

• Moodle • Twitter • Html • SecondLife • Geogebra • Xperimania • Blogs • Nanoyou

http://moodle.scientix.eu


Scientix Community

• Scientix public profiles

• Rating of Scientix teaching materials

• Discussion fora

• Online chat


Scientix public profiles


Public profile page


User generated

content:

• Comments and

rating of the

Scientix resources


Scientix European Conference 6-8 May 2011, Brussels

• Key note speech – Sir John Holman, UK • Posters session • 46 talks • 2 Round tables • 25 stands presenting EU funded projects • 10 mini-workshops • 379 participants from 37 countries


Conference sessions: • Science education research • Science education – thinking

outside the box • EU projects for researchers iv.

School collaboration • Science & industry and schools • Teachers associations • Portals and resources • Tools and experiments • Science museums and

amusement parks




Conclusions:

• The quality of every science education system depends ultimately on

the quality of its teachers

• Science teaching practice: inquiry-based approach, learning by doing,

first-hand contact with real research

• Teachers should combine excellent knowledge of their subject with

excellent pedagogical and assessment skills

• Promoting and sharing best practices across Europe



Scientix workshops Present, share, highlight and inspire good practices,

linked to the specific content offered by Scientix and

take into account the latest development in the field

of science and maths education and the results

produced by EU funded projects.

• GIREP 2010, Reins, France

• Eminent 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark

• eTwinning Conference 2011, Budapest,

Hungary

• Pathway summer school 2011, Heraklion,

Crete

• SPICE summer academy 2011, Prague,

Czech Republic

• Establish Conference 2012, Dublin, Ireland

• eTwinning Workshop 2012, Druskininkai,

Lithuania

XploreHealth is financed under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development

http://www.xplorehealth.eu/

Coordinated by: The Parc Científic Barcelona (PCB) http://www.pcb.ub.edu

Partners: Centre of the Cell, United Kingdom European Schooolnet (EUN), Belgium European network of science centres and museums (Ecsite), Belgium Ubach Munné y Asociados, Spain

XploreHealth A European gateway to the science and research of health, through online and offline innovative activities aimed at citizens, patients, pupils and teachers


http://www.pcb.ub.edu/

http://www.pcb.ub.edu/


Objectives Build and promote an online and offline interactive environment to create an active engagement of society with health science and research around health research projects.

How? • Developing attractive, accessible and rigorous resources • Organising on-site events (in schools and science centres) • Developing web portal for students, teachers, patient associations and the public

Mission Communicate medicine research and its results, promote scientific literacy and stimulate dialogue between science and society


The portal offers modules on various health research topics:

• Drug development

• Biotechnology

• Skin cancer

• Malaria

Modules to be published soon:

• Obesity

• HIV/AIDS

• Genomics

• Mental health

www.xplorehealth.eu




It’s Lab Time!

Connecting Schools to Universities’ Remote Laboratories

Coordinated by Scienter

UniSchooLabS is funded with support from the European Commission. This presentation reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Partners:


• Making Universities’ Laboratories available to primary and secondary schools

• Developing a Toolkit for teachers to help them use the laboratories in their teaching The UniSchooLabs tool-kit will support teachers in selecting a remote or virtual lab and developing a lab activity based on an inquiry model template.

Objectives: http://unischoolabs.eun.org

http://unischoolabs.eun.org/

Remote laboratory Run by a university or science center Accessible online, experiments can be observed in real time, learner controls the equipment


Simulation of real world experimental data Virtual laboratory


Remote labs and primary / secondary schools Existing barriers

• Lack of awareness about existence & accessibility of labs among science teachers

• Information which university labs are suitable for use in primary or secondary school teaching hard to find

• Most teaching and learning materials of remote labs not geared towards younger students and not available in many languages

• Pioneer teachers are not networked • Demand well-established school - university collaboration


Tool-kit components

• Remote/Virtual labs’ catalogue Teachers can quickly browse through the available labs and select the one that matches their needs

• Good practices 12 good practices in astronomy, physics and chemistry; all ready to use in the classroom

• Lab activity editor Online environment allowing creating learning activities by teachers

Scientix – UniSchooLabS / XploreHealth collaboration

• Networking with teachers (workshops, conferences)

• Translation on-demand service • Promoting the project’s materials

XploreHealth: Maïté Debry, EUN [email protected]

Try out the toolkit yourself!

Contacts:

UniSchooLabS: Anne-Christin Tannhäuser, Scienter [email protected]

Scientix: Dr Agueda Gras-Velazquez, EUN [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

