Schools Tune Into Mars Erasmus Project

Project Title

Schools Tune Into Mars

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; Pedagogy and didactics; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

The overall objective of the Schools Tuned into Mars is to provide pedagogical materials with high-quality inspirational lessons related to planetology, that all teachers should have access for their continuing professional development to keep up-to-date with the latest space research and ways of teaching. The partners decided to propose the School Tune Into Mars project to meet the needs of teachers for professional development opportunities related to science education using in particular scientific concepts in the field of planetology and planetary seismology.

According to the results of PISA results in 2015 (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2015-France-FRA.pdf), what happens inside the classrooms is crucial for the student learning and training of their career aspirations. The way in which teachers teach science is thus more strongly associated with student performance and aspirations to pursue a scientific profession than the material and human resources of the science departments of institutions, including teacher qualifications or extracurricular activities offered. students. In almost all countries and economies participating in the PISA 2015 survey, students claiming that their teachers explain scientific concepts achieve higher science scores, even after taking into account the socio-economic background. In France, nearly 87% of students say that their teachers explain scientific concepts in all or part of science courses, and these students obtain a higher science score of 38 points (24 points after taking into account the socio-economic background ) to students whose teachers never or almost never explain scientific concepts.

Providing adequate guidance and underpinning innovative activities to be developed in a co-constructive process between researchers and teachers, the STIM project will build a network of schools and organisations interested in Space education and in Mars related studies. The STIM proposal is a joint initiative of the international highschool of Valbonne and several organisations specialised in STEM education. The STIM project will develop complementary blocks of activities:
– The development of a report on the integration of Space mission results in STEM lessons, which will evaluate successful models used at European level
– A Pedagogical guide will then be developed on how to use these Space mission resources in the classroom
– A MOOC entitled “bring Mars missions in the classroom” will provide online training to teachers in order to use innovative teaching materials related to Mars mission in the classroom
– Recommendations for the creation of a Mars-Edu network will then be drafted in order to set the scene for a new innovative and long-term collaborative network about space education related to Mars missions.

The professional development opportunities developed via the project and innovative pedagogical materials will be offered online in order to allow a large number of educators to use them in their daily practice. The reports and pedagogical guide produced via the project will also be offered in the language of each partner in order to maximize the outreach of the project.

Project Website

https://insight.oca.eu/fr/stim-resources

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 210127,64 Eur

Project Coordinator

Lycée International de Valbonne & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Asociación Española para la Enseñanza de las Ciencias de la Tierra (AEPECT)
• INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE-DEZVOLTARE PENTRU FIZICA PAMANTULUI
• EUN PARTNERSHIP AISBL