Eco-systems of Open Science Schooling Making open science schooling a reality for secondary school students Erasmus Project

Project Title

Eco-systems of Open Science Schooling
Making open science schooling a reality for secondary school students

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Encourage “open schooling” where schools, in cooperation with other stakeholders, become an AGENT OF COMMUNITY well-being; families are encouraged to become real partners in school life and activities; professionals from enterprise, civil and wider society are actively involved in bringing real-life projects into the classroom.
Commission 2015, Science Education for Responsible Citizenship

To make open science schooling a reality, the Commission recommends schools to have not only access to, but permanent and sustainable access to real-life and real-time science resources (locally and globally) for students and teachers to tap into – and the project will demonstrate how such permanent science collaboration should take the form of “eco-systems of open science schooling”.

ECO-SYSTEMS OF OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING will make available the basic resources, infrastructures and collaboration student teams need to carry through and accomplish open schooling science missions.

The project is missioned to contribute considerably to re-engaging young students in science and technology learning and in the world of science and technology – one of the top strategic priorities and innovation needs in European education.

Open science schooling has proved to be a strong and very attractive alternative to the very traditional science teaching, and to offer the young students a much more open, interesting and exciting way into what science can be for them.
The critique from the Commission of what can be called “modernisation” of science learning in secondary school is that such attempts mostly amount to punctual community activities, the use of modern technology and including discussions of societal challenges such as climate change.

The Commission clearly states that such modernizations do not fundamentally change traditional science teaching and are therefore not able to counter the increasing disengagement from science among young students.

However, schools do not have the resources to create such open science opportunities for the students from scratch – they need permanent and sustainable access to science resources in the
local and global communities.

The project names these resources and the permanent access ECO-SYSTEMS OF OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING, using the term “eco-systems” to describe the living and constantly changing nature of such science resources and the students’ engagement with these resources, as well as the mutually benefitting interaction between a number of societal players.

The project will produce practice based guidance and good practice to schools and science teachers on how to establish and maintain such eco-systems in different ways.

The project idea is partly based on the extremely valuable lessons learned from the 30 months Open Science Schooling Erasmus+ Schools project, coordinated by the University of Eastern Finland.
The lessons learned are unfolded along the application.

Key methodologies and work methods in the project are therefore:
– The schools must be involved as organisations, not as individual teachers
– The eco-systems should be built in interplay with the student missions to create authentic

knowledge resources, based on practical experience
– Basic community science collaboration resources must be available to the students, as recommended by the EU Commission, and this will happen through the project’s long and student led open science schooling practice
– The project defines “community” in the broadest sense of the word: local community, region, but also scientific community or virtual community
– Student missions must address different kinds of communities in different phases of the project to engage the students in different parts of the world of science
– The eco-systems of open science schooling must be driven by the schools in their new role as “agents of change” in the community (OECD)

The ultimate mission of ECO-SYSTEMS OF OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING is to provide attractive and practically useful guidance to science teachers and secondary schools from across EU to assist them building up eco-systems of science collaboration in their communities and guide their young students in their real-life and real-time science missions.

It is a paramount principle in the project that the open science schooling guidance to schools and teachers must be based on authentic student-led science engagement, on strong collaboration with a variety of science resources and on highly qualified knowledge creation from the student teams’ practice.

The project’s results are therefore not based on theory or abstract assumptions, but on dynamic practical experience.

Key outcomes will be:
ECO-SYSTEMS OF OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING – THE GUIDANCE PACK
HOW WE LEARNED SCIENCE THROUGH THE ECO-SYSTEMS – THE STUDENT VIDEO
POLICY PAPER: WHAT (MORE) DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING A REALITY?
RESEARCH PAPER: WHAT (MORE) NEEDS RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION TO MAKE OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING A REALITY?

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 272107 Eur

Project Coordinator

Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences & Country: NL

Project Partners

• ELAZIG DOGA ANADOLU LISESI
• Pasvalio Levens pagrindine mokykla
• ITA-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO
• Scoala Gimnaziala Gheorghe Titeica
• Liceum Ogólnokształcące z Oddziałami Dwujęzycznymi im. Adama Mickiewicza
• Working with Europe/Treballant amb Europa Associació