Eco-systems of Open Science Schooling Project

Making open science schooling a reality for secondary school students (Eco-OSS)

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Participating countries: Netherlands, Lithuania, Turkey, Poland, Romania, Finland, and Spain
• Start: 01-10-2020 - End: 30-09-2022
• Project Reference: 2020-1-NL01-KA201-064504
• Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
• Action Type: Strategic Partnerships for school education

SUMMARY

Encourage “open schooling” where schools, in cooperation with other stakeholders, become an AGENT OF COMMUNITY well-being; families are encouraged to become real partners in school life and activities; professionals from enterprise, civil and wider society are actively involved in bringing real-life projects into the classroom.

Commission 2015, Science Education for Responsible Citizenship
To make open science schooling a reality, the Commission recommends schools have not only access to, but permanent and sustainable access to real-life and real-time science resources (locally and globally) for students and teachers to tap into – and the project will demonstrate how such permanent science collaboration should take the form of “eco-systems of open science schooling”.

ECO-SYSTEMS OF OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING will make available the basic resources, infrastructures and collaboration student teams need to carry through and accomplish open schooling science missions.

The project is missioned to contribute considerably to re-engaging young students in science and technology learning and in the world of science and technology – one of the top strategic priorities and innovation needs in European education.

Open science schooling has proved to be a strong and very attractive alternative to traditional science teaching, and to offer young students a much more open, interesting and exciting way into what science can be for them.

Criticism by the Commission of what can be called “modernisation” of science learning in secondary schools is that such attempts mostly amount to punctual community activities, the use of modern technology and discussions of societal challenges such as climate change.

The Commission clearly states that such modernisations do not fundamentally change traditional science teaching and are, therefore, not able to counter the increasing disengagement from science among young students.

However, schools do not have the resources to create such open science opportunities for the students from scratch – they need permanent and sustainable access to science resources in the
local and global communities.

The project names these resources and the permanent access ECO-SYSTEMS OF OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING, using the term “eco-systems” to describe the living and constantly changing nature of such science resources and the students’ engagement with these resources, as well as the mutually benefitting interaction between a number of societal players.

The project will produce practice-based guidance and good practice to schools and science teachers on how to establish and maintain such eco-systems in different ways. The project idea is partly based on the extremely valuable lessons learned from the 30-month Open Science Schooling Erasmus+ Schools project coordinated by the University of Eastern Finland.
 
Key methodologies and work methods in the project are, therefore:

• The schools must be involved as organizations, not as individual teachers.
• The eco-systems should be built in and interplay with the student missions to create authentic knowledge resources, based on practical experience.
• Basic community science collaboration resources must be available to the students, as recommended by the EU Commission, and this will happen through the project’s long and student-led open science schooling practice.
• The project defines “community” in the broadest sense of the word: local community, region, but also scientific community or virtual community.
• Student missions must address different kinds of communities in different phases of the project to engage the students in different parts of the world of science.
• The eco-systems of open science schooling must be driven by the schools in their new role as “agents of change” in the community (OECD).
   

The ultimate mission of ECO-SYSTEMS OF OPEN SCIENCE SCHOOLING is to provide attractive, practical and useful guidance to science teachers and secondary schools from across the EU to assist them in building up eco-systems of science collaboration in their communities and guide their young students in their real-life and real-time science missions.

It is a paramount principle in the project that the open science schooling guidance to schools and teachers must be based on authentic, student-led science engagement, on strong collaboration with a variety of science resources and on highly qualified knowledge creation from the student teams’ practice. The project’s results are, therefore, not based on theory or abstract assumptions, but on dynamic practical experience.

Result: https://www.eco-oss.eu/results/

For more information: Website: https://www.eco-oss.eu/

Related news:https://www.eco-oss.eu/category/news-events/

Would you like to collaborate, or do you have any questions?

Research Centre

Email: researchcentre@wittenborg.eu

Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences Laan van de Mensenrechten 500, 7331 VZ Apeldoorn Phone: +31 (0)88 6672 688