FRONTIERS
The FRONTIERS project aims to demonstrate how Nobel Prize-winning Physics can be systematically integrated in the school curriculum. To achieve that, FRONTIERS brings together outreach teams from large-scale research infrastructures in frontier Physics that can offer access to rich scientific databases and resources in a variety of fields that can provide a catalyst for science learning. Schools, universities and research centres will act as mediators, organising information – tailored to the needs of their communities – across scientific disciplines and providing tools for understanding complex scientific research, making science understandable and interesting to the public.
The project’s aim to attract students’ attention by presenting contemporary Nobel Prize-winning ideas in Physics and by offering activities that are closely related to new technological achievements and everyday life is one of the keys to stimulate students and contribute to the discovery of the next generation of innovators. Students are always fascinated by cutting-edge experiments and are eager to find out as much as they can about them.
FRONTIERS will involve numerous teachers in the design and development of innovative classroom activities in collaborative way by developing a network where teachers can collaborate with other teachers but also with the outreach teams of large-scale research infrastructures. Being part of a professional network will encourage interaction and will provide them with opportunities to enrich their practices and professional context through cooperation within and among schools, universities, and frontier research institutions, collaborative reflection, development and evaluation of instruction, exchange of ideas, materials and experiences, quality development, cooperation among teachers, students and researchers and support and stimulation from research.
Basic information
FRONTIERS' research focus is centred on the following aspects:
- The selection of a series of scientific research outreach programmes that successfully introduce the scientific methodology in school science education, by utilising existing research infrastructures of frontier research institutions enriched with online tools.
- The integration of these initiatives under a common educational approach and development of the FRONTIERS Demonstrators that can be exploited and widely used by the educational communities in Europe and beyond.
- The creation of virtual learning communities of educators, students and researchers and involving them in extended episodes of playful learning.
- The systematic validation of the proposed approaches and activities in order to identify their impact in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.
- The design and implementation of a systematic awareness-raising strategy that will contribute to the effective communication of the project’s results and outcomes.
Bringing together expertise from frontier scientific research and educational research in formal and informal science learning, along with user communities across Europe, the FRONTIERS consortium aims to demonstrate how Europe’s scientific infrastructures could provide powerful tools for scaling-up current pilot implementations for effective introduction of frontier science in the school curriculum and development of effective outreach programmes.
FRONTIERS will provide:
- The FRONTIERS Demonstrators, a series of innovative educational activities that offer access to unique scientific resources to teachers and students organised under a systematic pedagogical framework.
- The FRONTIERS Community, a virtual learning community of teachers, students and researchers who will be involved in extended episodes of playful learning.
- The FRONTIERS Community Support Environment, which will host the project’s communities while at the same time it will operate as a repository with unique educational resources.
- The FRONTIERS Toolkit “Effective Ways of Introducing Frontier Science in Schools”, which will be available through the e-Twinning collaboration space to all European schools.