The ambition of the Fibonacci Project is to contribute to the dissemination of such approaches throughout the European Union, in ways that fit with national or local specificities.
It defines a process of dissemination from 12 Reference Centres to 25 Twin Centres, based on quality and a global approach. This is done through the pairing of Reference Centres selected for their extensive school coverage and capacities for transfer of IBSME with 12 Twin Centres 1 and 13 Twin Centres 2, considered as Reference Centres-in-progress.
A scientific committee of acknowledged experts in science and mathematics education supervises the work. An external evaluation is also included to check the achievement and impact of the project.
The Fibonacci Project will result in a blueprint for a transfer methodology valid for building further Reference Centres in Europe.
The project, started on January 1, 2010 for a duration of 3 years, is coordinated by the French La main à la pâte programme (Académie des sciences, Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique, École normale supérieure – the latter being the legal entity in charge of Fibonacci); scientific coordination is shared with Bayreuth University (Germany).
The Consortium includes 25 members from 21 countries with endorsement from major scientific institutions such as Academies of Sciences. It will be subsidised up to 4.78 million euros by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme.
The project is composed by thre main pillars:
- Pillar I. Inquiry-based science and mathematics education for scientific literacy. IBSME goes beyond the learning of concepts and basic manipulation to the key factor of engaging students in identifying relevant evidence and reflecting on its interpretations. Through IBSME:
• students develop concepts that enable them to understand the scientific aspects of the world around them through their own thinking, using critical and logical reasoning about evidence that they have gathered.
• teachers lead students to develop the skills necessary for inquiry and the understanding of science concepts through their own activity and reasoning.
- Pillar II. Local initiative for innovation and sustainability. Local and regional initiatives are particularly appropriate to the reform of scientific education in Europe:
• the potential for innovation is strong because of the reduced scale, the greater concentration of actors, and better integration into local policies.
• capitalisation of resources from different actors inside and outside the formal education system is possible, progressively involving the whole local community in a joint effort.
• schemes and tools can be tested previous to their replication on a larger scale.
- Pillar III. Twinning strategy for IBSME dissemination. Dissemination of innovation is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather a transfer of semi-formalised practices and experiences that have reached a satisfactory level of recognition, expertise and sustainability on a local scale. Consequently:
• special efforts must be made with regard to the application of successful strategies inspired by Reference Centres.
• twinning and peer-learning through visits, tutoring, sharing resources and strategy transfer are the key to a broad and successful dissemination.
• focussing both on the strategy for implementation and on the pedagogical content is important.
The project portal www.fibonacci‐project.eu provides information, resources and tools for the project. All the materials are available for free in English into the Resources section. Other documents are also available for the scientific educational community on the multilingual European platform Scientix (
http://scientix.eu).
