Little Scientist Project

About the project

Science is sometimes an abstract concept for students. The aim of this project is to place students in real research situations with well-qualified and international scientists. In the activities of this project, students must think in a team manner and use scientific methodologies in order to succeed in real-life settings.

aims

The project aims to motivate students to carry out scientific research by working on problems that allow them to understand the importance of science in real life and how science is related to other subjects.

WORK PROCESS

There are five organisations involved in this project from Spain, Cyprus, Poland, Turkey and Switzerland. We are looking for learning arrangements in which students can explore, invent or learn science as active, creative learners with hands-on material experiments, by using ICT and/or scientific software for simulations.

EXPECTED RESULTS

Students are travelling to each planned students/learning activities meeting. They will work in international teams related to a scientific topic decided before the meeting. They will "compete" in order to reach to a solution to the scientific problem. Finally, they will participate in "super-lessons" planned by teachers. Also, a local research center will be visited by students during their travels. Apart from improving student's scientific skills and perception of science, all student's activities will also improve their language skills, since the activities will also focus on CLIL methodology.

actual RESULTS

The Project "Little Scientist" aimed to motivate students for scientific research by working on problems that show the importance of science in real life and how science can be related to other subjects. We were looking for learning arrangements in which students could explore, invent or learn as active, creative learners with hands-on material (experiments), by using ICT and/or science software e.g. for simulations. Concrete research experiences were organised with local research centers.

These arrangements – often cross-curricular – were organised by teachers and carried out during Learning/ Teaching/ Training Activities.  Each meeting had a real life topic: Light, Water and Renewable Energy Sources.

The innovation of this project is that it involved a visit at a local research center, where a concrete scientific experience was organised by the scientist in charge, in collaboration with the school teacher. This placed the students in a real research situation where the communication and organisation between them became the key to success.

Three student/learning activities were carried out; one in Spain, one in Poland and one in Cyprus. All students' activities were planned so as to improve both their language skills and key competences, since we have focused on CLIL methodology. Teachers benefited from the project, by exchanging teaching methods that are highly cooperative, offering students new ways of learning. That broadened teachers' practical methodology and improved the effectiveness of teaching methods. All participants became more familiar with the different European cultures.

Mainly, students of ages 12 to 16 were involved in the activities. They worked in international teams related to the topic prepared before and they competed in order to resolve the problem more efficiently. Finally, they participated in “super-lessons” planned by teachers. Students attended lessons in the hosting school as well. In between the meetings, international teams of students worked on motivating activities that they also shared with their school communities afterwards, through similar experiences.

Two Transnational Project Meetings were organised. The first one was held in Alcala de Henares, Spain, at the beginning of the project and the second one was held in Nicosia, Cyprus, at the end of the project.