KidsINNscience: Innovation in Science Education - Turning Kids on to Science
KidsINNscience develops and tests adaptive strategies to facilitate the innovation of curricula and teaching and learning of science and technology in formal and informal education.
KidsINNscience is a research project involving ten partner countries from Europe and Latin America. It aims to identify and promote innovative approaches for teaching and learning science, adapt and test them for implementation in mainstream schools, and develop innovative strategies for science and technology education in all participating countries.
The overall aim is to raise the interest of young people in science and technology and to increase the number of young people entering a career in science.
The basic assumption of the project is that innovations in science and technology education can work effectively if they are adapted to the local circumstances. KidsINNscience enables participating countries to learn from each other and to develop feasible innovation plans that fit their specific conditions.
The aims of the project are to:
- facilitate educationalists at different positions in the educational system to operate more creatively within the system and to help generate change toward more active learning systems, and
- help to improve performance and interest in science and technology among young people
Cultural diversity, gender aspects and activity based/learner-centred approaches are explicitly addressed in all phases of the project.
Basic information
- Freie Universität Berlin - Institut Futur, Germany
- Institute of Upper Secondary and Vocational Education of the University of Zurich, Switzerland
- Institut Jozef Stefan, Slovenia
- National Institute for Curriculum Development, Netherlands
- Università degli Studi "Roma Tre", Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Industriale, Italy
- London Southbank University, United Kingdom
- Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
- Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico
- Núcleo de Tecnologia Educacional para a Saúde of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The main questions addressed by the project are:
1. What strategies for teaching and learning in science and technology motivate teachers and learners in the participating countries?
2. What similarities and differences are there in innovative science and technology teaching and learning in the participating countries?
3. Considering the specific characteristics of each country, which strategies to innovate science and technology teaching and learning would work in the participating countries?
The main outcomes of the project include:
- A definition of an initial set of criteria and indicators to describe and compare science and technology curricula, methodologies for teaching and strategies for learning in the different countries.
- A comprehensive compilation of innovative approaches for science education.
- An adaptation of the approaches to make them applicable in different countries.
- Testing of the adapted strategies in schools.
- An evaluation of these field trials.
- A redefinition of the set of categories and criteria for innovation in teaching and learning of science.
- Concrete, country specific strategies.
Based on the comparisons of innovative teaching and learning practices in the participating countries, kidsINNscience will develop a set of adaptive activities and materials, such as teaching materials and methodological guidelines for initial and in-service teacher training, to be tested during field trials in schools and/or training courses in each of the participating countries.
The pilot materials, methodological and pedagogical guidelines and pilot results will be made available at a later stage.