STIMULA: Stimulating Science & Technology Competences Through Innovative Means For Teaching And Learning
Stimula brings science and technology closer to students and students closer to science and technology, through bidirectional collaborative initiatives between schools and agents of the world of work.
The main objective of the project is to foster the Science & Technology (S&T) vocation among European young people (12 - 18 years old). It is expected that the increase in the motivation towards S&T will contribute to the improvement and development of key competences in S&T among students, and to their scientific literacy.
Stimula activities are two-fold:
• Bring S&T to schools, be developing and implementing educational initiatives extending classical S&T curriculum and promoting team work, creativity and ICT skills (eg. hands-on experiments, students competitions etc.)
• Take schools to S&T, through defining collaboration strategies, models and programmes between schools on one side and universities, research centres or private sector on the other.
Basic information
Stimula will conduct a study to measure students’ perception and motivation towards S&T in schools in Spain, France, Germany, UK and Romania. The results will be then used in developing concrete measures to strengthen science education practices.
The second phase will focus on different measures, strategies, and methods to enhance the (current and future) S&T teacher’s teaching skills. They will be formalised in guidelines, best practices and recommendations. A special emphasis will be put on initiatives and models for collaboration between schools and universities, research centres or industry.
The proposed educational activities will be based on experimentation and problem solving, an implementation plan will be defined for the schools of Spain, France, UK, Germany and Romania. \
The results will be implemented and validated in a practical way in pilot actions in the schools participating in the project.
Stimula will develop and test a toolkit composed of experiments scenarios and contests to be carried out in the schools. The materials and procedures will be described together with a specific content relevant to the curricula.
Besides, Stimula will also develop guidelines and good practices on how to stimulate students’ interest in S&T issues. The guidelines will have the form of a set of key actions (internships, excursions, contests) to create new links between schools and scientific research. Mapping of current networking models in the participating countries will be included.