Science Teaching Educational Packs for Schools across Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Science Teaching Educational Packs for Schools across Europe

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: Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Natural sciences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

STEPS across Europe (Science Teaching Educational Packs for Schools across Europe).
Project Description:
The aims of this project are to: enable pupils (and staff) to work in an international collaborative team to design, produce, trial and market a sustainable practical Science resource and to train others how to use that resource and to provide trainee primary teachers and /or qualified teachers of young pupils with CPD (practical training) and resources to teach a number of stimulating practical Science lessons/resources for distance learning to their pupils for years to come.
Science teacher(s) at each of the partner schools will run several classes with the help of a group of senior pupils in which they teach practical Science to younger pupils (either in their own school or ideally in one or more local primary schools). The practical lessons taught will be chosen by the teacher and senior pupils involved, in collaboration with the teachers of the younger pupils from a list proposed at the first project meeting . These lessons must be stimulating, relevant, cheap to resource, and easy for the primary teacher to run. Following each lesson feedback will be obtained from the senior pupils, the primary teacher and the younger pupils as to the content of the lesson, level of enjoyment/engagement, relevance and usefulness to the pupils being taught, to the primary teacher etc. After a short series of lessons have been run, the lead teacher at each partner school will choose the ‘best’ (1-2) practical lessons ( a final total of approximately 6 lessons will be included in the resource boxes). Lesson plans will be written, along with guides for technical and safety aspects of the lessons, curriculum links for that country ‘s education system, etc. These will ultimately be translated into the language of each partner school.
At the first LTT meeting these activities (lesson plans/feedback/technical guides) will be shared between all the partner schools for evaluation as to general relevance and the feasibility of resourcing and running them in each of the other partner schools. The 6 lessons (ideally focussing on a range of Biology, Chemistry and Physics topics) which are selected as being the most universally useful/ feasible will be included in the resource packs (boxes). Each school will trial several experiments proposed by other schools following training at this first meeting .
Lesson plans will be produced for each of the 6 lessons. These will all include the same type of information for teachers, pupils and technicians (e.g. aims, curriculum links, resources required, safety considerations, timings, steps in the lesson, background information, learning outcomes, worksheets/templates for results etc) and will ideally be differentiated to allow for their use with pupils of different ages/abilities.
Pupils from the partner schools will work in international groups prior to and at the first project meeting to design the box packaging. The most popular design will be used on all of the resource packs.
Each school will have groups of pupils which works in collaboration with pupils from the other partner schools to focus on a particular task e.g. to plan and run the Science lessons, to design the packaging, to produce the project website,to write an application for funding from local/national businesses/charities to pay for the boxes/contents,etc. (This could be in return for inclusion of their business logo on the boxes if so desired by the company, although the essential costs will hopefully be met by funding from the Erasmus programme).
A small number of trial boxes will be made up for use in a trial/preliminary dissemination workshop run by pupils and staff from all of the partner schools for primary school teachers. This will take place at a meeting in Clackmannanshire in November, 2021. Feedback will again be sought from the teachers and pupils involved in these workshops.
The final design and contents of the boxes will be decided on after taking into consideration feedback from all involved in the workshop.
The boxes and contents will be produced in each school for use in their region/country. Each school will then work in their own community/nationally to publicise and run dissemination events at which, with the help of the senior pupils, they train primary teachers and/or trainee teachers to run lessons using the resources in the box.
The lesson plans and instructions for the production/restocking of boxes will also be made available to other teachers via a dedicated project website and national Science organisations such as the Scottish Schools Equipment Research Centre in Scotland, CEP in Spain, etc. This will be advertised through links on the school websites/ the Erasmus+ dissemination platform , school magazines etc.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 78099 Eur

Project Coordinator

Dollar Academy (Governers of Dollar Academy Trust). & Country: UK

Project Partners

• IES FRANCISCO GINER DE LOS RÍOS
• Instituut Mariawende-Blydhove
• V. gimnazija, Zagreb