ScienceLit: Scientific Literacy for all! Erasmus Project

Project Title

ScienceLit: Scientific Literacy for all!

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The European Union has the challenge to advance towards more responsible and impacting science, looking for innovative links between science and people. Making science more attractive for young people, enrolling citizens in research or promoting formal and informal scientific education are, for instance, some of the objectives under the Horizon 2020 programme. Likewise, the European reference framework points out the need of developing key competences for lifelong learning of the adult population including the knowledge of fundamental and scientific concepts, principles and methods. The European reference framework suggests that these knowledge and competences may make adult learners more critical and able to make complex assessments of situations in everyday life, for instance taking into account ethical issues when assessing the impact of technological progress in their families and communities.

Based on the necessity to develop adult learners’ scientific knowledge, the ScienceLit project has developed a methodology for the transference of scientific knowledge to adults with low skills and in disadvantaged situations who participate in non-formal educational programmes. There are no current projects that provide scientific literacy to adult learners, especially to those who are low-educated or are at risk of social exclusion. For this reason, the specific objectives of the project are:

– To facilitate the access to scientific knowledge to adult people, especially to those in an at-risk situation, providing them with the tools that they need for their scientific literacy; tools that enable them to understand, interpret and analyze the scientific knowledge independently and autonomously.
– To develop the ScienceLit Interactive Guide to transfer scientific knowledge to adult people.
– To connect European Science institutions with the Adult people at risk in order to contribute to set science closer to society. And to develop key competences (literacy, numeracy) by participating in Successful Educational Actions like Scientific Gatherings.

The project is directed to four target groups. The main target group is adult learners with low skills and in disadvantaged situations, more concretely, adults above the age of 55 and young adults at risk of age 18 to 34. The project uses the dialogic communicative methodology that incorporates participants as part of the project team. This means that adult learners traditionally excluded from the areas of education and science have been key speakers and participants in the project. The other three target groups are: adult education educators, professionals and volunteers; adult education providers and schools; and public administration and decision makers.

The key innovation of the project is that it applies a Successful Educational Action (SEA), an educational action that has been scientifically tested to always have effective results, to the field of science. The SEA used is the “dialogic gathering”. The first main output of the project, the ScienceLit Interactive Guide, explains how to implement “Scientific Dialogic Gatherings” so that they can be implemented in adult schools across Europe. It is available on the project website, which contains audiovisual materials on how to organize and participate in a scientific dialogic gathering. The third output is a training course for educators and volunteers on scientific dialogic gatherings.

The ScienceLit project has been led by Agora (Spain), a community-based NGO with 30 years of experience in the implementation of SEAs. The team is also composed by two community-based organizations with a long tradition of work with vulnerable groups (Slovenia and Greece), a federation of centres of adult education with access to multiple centres, organizations, and public institutions at the European level (Spain), and a big research institution on adult education (Germany). The main results are the acquisition of basic competences by adult learners and the promotion of the independence and autonomy of vulnerable collectives of adults. This project opens a new line of work in adult education, in the field of Science Literacy.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 161055 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASOCIACION DE PERSONAS PARTICIPANTES AGORA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Deutsches Institut fuer Erwachsenenbildung eV Leibniz-Zentrum für Lebenslanges Lernen
• RAZVOJNO IZOBRAZEVALNI CENTER NOVOMESTO
• Federació d’Associacions Culturals i Educatives de Persones Adultes
• KENTRO MERIMNAS OIKOGENEIAS KAI PAIDIOU