Enabling Access to Scientific Yield (E.A.S.Y) - Discover the Elements Around You OBJECTIVE: We work towards more equitable learning environments to achieve better skills and results in sciences for all. As a partnership reflecting the diversity of European surroundings, we will work to support a basic scientific understanding of common elements in students everyday lives and surroundigs (sun and skin, textiles and tissues), explore their use and chemical properties to reach conclusions about their sustainable use, alternatives and correlations. Each of these elements is relevant to one partner school as a resource or typical product, and as a result students will discover the relatedness and systemic dimension of these items, their study and use throughout Europe. The items also provide specific entries and motivations for male and female, domestic and newcomer learners for them to explore specifically - and yet acquire the same skills and competences. NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS, PROFILE Our four partner schools from the four schools in West Germany, Central Finland, Coastal Slovenia and Southern Spain will roughly have 100 participants among student and staff members. While the northern schools are a female only and mostly male learning environment, the southern schools are mixed, granting greater exposure and role proficiency to the former groups. Münster and Sevilla offer access to research facilities at the universities that the two other schools seek, while the others offer outstanding access to practical field work and exploration of the sourcing of materials from the natural surroundings. While the southern schools have known and embraced immigration and emigration flux in their schools, the northern ones are increasingly confronted with these situations and embrace an exchange of organizational, didactic and evaluative practices. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES Over two school years, the research centering around the afore mentioned items will commence by the identification of the items, their use, related chances, challenges, and opportunities. Research, experimentation and application of their findings in models, schemes and products will follow. Step by step results will be compared and assessed, challenging learners to verify findings, complete them or find alternatives (both in face to face meetings and by ICT, e-twinning, our website). Joint and individual, partner and single activities will alternate. Mobilities will primarily serve to provide cross-cultural and gender-mixed environments to have staff and students explore the role reversal as host and guest AND the chances of alternating between gender specific and gender-blind teaching and learning. Each mobility will highlight one item or outcome and prepare another chapter / didactic module comprising examples of lesson plans for the ELEMENTS MANUAL, our product featuring more equitable impulses teaching sustainability. METHODOLODGY In peer based and inductive learning, the role of the teachers will be to counsel and prepare the settings, engage students in challenging situations and context. Adressing science, this implies resources for research, tolls for research and experiment, organisational support, open access materials and sufficient room for participation and autonomy. Adressing the gender gap in science, the initial step is awareness-raising, role reversal, positive reinforcement, reflection, and attribution of more active roles to genders where they are typically under-represented. Adressing newcomers to a culture, methods imply positive discrimination, confidence-raising by valorising the newcomer role, confidence raising, and systemic approaches such as winning parent support, lowering language barriers and matching assessment and individual project work. RESULTS, IMPACT AND BENEFIT The online manual provides a lasting source of didactic materials for schools to try out and implement examples of equitable science teaching, adds to authentic easy-access multilingual teaching materials for science. Participation will increase the particpants science, study, language, intercultural, and organizational skills. Teachers will raise their awareness of the afore mentioned issues and broaden their notion of scientific literacy. They will exchange practices and strategies seeking gender and cultural equity at the methodological, social, didactic, organizsational and systemic level. Organisations will benefit from the knowledge gained. Partners will multiply their results through encounters with universities, and teacher trainers for adaptations in science teaching. Science classes will reduce comlexities and language barriers, roles in the learning process will be switched among male and female, domestic and "foreign" students alter their (self)-preconceptions and attitudes. Achievements and acitve roles in learning encourage cultural newcomers to assume responsibility and function as role-models in jobs and society.
CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND ENABLING ACCESS TO SCIENTIFIC YIELD (E.A.S.Y) - Discover the Elements Around You! Given the speed of innovation in research and applied sciences, our schools across Europe are working towards better science litracy and basic skills in research and inquiry for their students. Discovery, implication and individual learning have proven to be key elements in fostering skill development. Practical, easy access-tasks and open-source tools have been shown to be useful in nurturing student success. Intercultural and diversity learning as well as avoidance of a potential gender-bias in sciences have turned out to be key factors for science education of the present and future. OBJECTIVES The project has created an online manual for advanced science classes in English. While its syllabus features the exemplary European sites of production and consumption of our project school locations, its goal is to propose a guide to accessible, practical objects of scientific inquiry while showing the need for sustainable development across Europe. In preparing the manual, students could -develop skills in practical scientific research activities (biology, chemistry, physics) -increase digital skills (using tools and media for research, documentation and exchange of findings) -nurture transversal skills (self-management, assessment/presentation of information, (English) language skills) -gain intercultural exposure, diversity literacy, and awareness of gender assumptions NUMBER / PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS Around 100 students and 20 teachers actively involved. Students are from the advanced secondary cycle of our four high schools spread out all across Europe (FINLAND, GERMANY, SLOVENIA, SPAIN). Participants were active an motivated in science classes and interested in intercultural exchange. Colleagues involved were a cross-disciplinary group of science, language, sociology, history, IT, and graphic and performative arts teachers with a common sense of European citizenship. DESCRIPTION OF UNDERTAKEN ACTIVITIES ALL ACTIVITIES FORM a discovery journey of course work on all the partner locations across Europe with preparatory work, analyses, exchange of findings, comparisons, discussion, on-site field work and documentation: YEAR ONE: SKIN AND SUN First semester: Learning occasion: SLOVENIA international learning mobility Subject: Plastics on our skin and the biosphere: use, replacements and alternatives SKIN CARE RECONSIDERED: COSMETICS ( SKIN a) TURN NANOS INTO NUTSHELLS – AVOIDING NANOPLASTICS IN COSMETICS? ( SKIN b) Second semester: Learning occasion: SPAIN international learning mobility Subject: Solar power, industrial farming: production, use and implications NADA COMO EL SOL: SOLAR POWER AND FORMS OF USAGE (SUN a) SURFACES - OPERATING PLANTS AND PLANTATIONS (SUN b) YEAR TWO: TISSUES AND TEXTILES Third semester: Learning occasion: GERMANY international learning mobility Subject: Coloring and textile production: Development and social balance THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES: TEXTILES, COATINGS AND COLORS (TEXTILES a) CHANCES AND CHALLENGES: EQUITY AND REALISM IN TEXTILE PRODUCTION (TEXTILES b) Fourth semester: Learning occasion: FINLAND international learning mobility Subject: Wood, pulp and paper: ecological footprint and alternatives OUT OF THE WOODS: TIMBER, PULP, PAPER, ENERGY (TISSUES a) ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS: THE DIFFERENT (RE)USES OF PULP (TISSUES b) SEQUENCE OF ACTIVITIES FOR EACH OF THE FOUR SEMESTERS (as specified in 5.4): - find key examples for sustainable development in daily lives and in their immediate environments (Skin, Sun, Textiles, Paper) - establish connection of these items to their production sites across Europe - research the procedures involved (sourcing, substances, mechanisms) - asses the implications (social, ecological and economic balance) - investigate benefits / alternatives - relate, exchange and communicate findings for a bigger picture OBJECTIVE AND RESULT Presentations and documentations for the final product, our online manual with reports, presentations, charts and videos, tutorials and guides to sustainability awareness across Europe. exhibits, talks, presentations, peer-to peer teaching workshops by students at dissemination occasions. IMPACT / LONGER-TERM BENEFITS LOCAL / DIRECT PARTICIPATION -better skills and results and enrollment in science classes, raised awareness of European citizenship, diversity exposure - lasting manual and documents for future use by science classes, teachers and learners across Europe - students / cooperating teachers: greater sense of initiative, enthusiasm and sense of European citizenship, greater awareness of the potentials of the program - Enrollment in Erasmus Plus project succeeded in addressing students with migrant background - More active student participation in school profile, new initiatives at schools - Increased number of students deciding in favor of scientific classes.