Relevant initiatives

Sciences at school

Liceo Scientifico “Galileo Galilei” - Ancona

2010

National

No

Teaching Methodology, Video, Didactical resource

Chemistry, Maths, Physics, Biology, ICT, Science

Italian

Teachers, Students

The students are the main actors of the Sciences at School project. They uploaded all the material becoming really 2.0 science communicator.
The students performed the following activities: a) drafting of texts like laboratorial courses, exercises, news items; b) recording of photographic and video material; c) wiki-type online collaboration.
The activities have been coordinated and supervised by the editorial director prof. Lombardo.
The objectives of the project were: a better awareness on the different phases that lead to the science communication; a better inclination to team-working; the acquisition of the didactic method called cooperative learning.
The methodologies are incidental to the mean itself: students made the material available to the users that often are students themselves.
To perform this task the students used a CMS (a content management system developed for the online sharing) and picture and video editing software.
The results of the Science at School project are now online. Whoever was interested in the subject can find a rich archive of Lessons, Laboratories, Exercises and Tests on many topics on Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Natural Science.

The peculiarity of this portal lies in the authors of the contents: they are the students from Liceo Scientifico “G. Galilei” in Ancona, who plays the role of scientific popularizers. The user expectations must consider this aspect.
Available for all the users who want to replay the interesting methodological aspects, this initiative has produced considerable resources for the Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Informatics and Earth Science topics.
For each subject contents can be found in the sections: “Lezioni” [Lessons], “Laboratorio” [Laboratory] “Esercizi e Test” [Exercises and Test] with analogue types of documents.
If Chemistry is taken as example, it is possible to find lessons of “unità fisiche di concentrazione” [physics unities of concentration] (http://www.scienzeascuola.it/lezioni/chimica/225-unita-fisiche-di-concentrazione), experiments of “preparazione di un gel” [gel preparation] (http://www.scienzeascuola.it/laboratorio/chimica/535-preparazione-di-un-gel) or “test sulla nomenclatura di composti organici” [nomenclature test of inorganic composite] (http://www.scienzeascuola.it/esercizi-e-test/chimica/379-test-sulla-nomenclatura-di-composti-inorganici).

This website has a very simply approach with only few key topics from with to start.
The exercises are really useful. Even if they have not online revision, they can be proposed as peer-to-peer work instead of the classical textbook-based one. Students are also more motivated by the new methodology.
The section on the laboratorial experiments provides a number of hints, above all in the framework of problem solving acivivies. The part on the video-lessons looks like very interesting to be proposed to students for reviewing, recheck and rethink to the same topics dealt with in class.
As a whole I think the contents of this portal, even if not numerous, are easily transferable to and usable by first two years high school students (up to third year VET students).

The visual impact is pleasant, graphically interesting and well organised (even if someone of us find the colours a bit boring). The website is rich of interactive material which is both easy to understand and exhaustive.
Each subject is in depth dealt with and the written presentations are easy to read.
The exercises are useful, above all the tests on self-evaluation that have medium-high difficulty level. As proposal for improvement, these exercises might be self-executable online instead of giving the possibility to download them.
The experiments are presented in an accurate and interesting way.
The videos, above all those of Astronomy, have been very much appreciated.
Looking for topic is simple and the item “cosa c’è di nuovo” (“what’s new”) is useful because is connected with the topic you are currently consulting.
Some factors that positively stroke the students’ feeling are the presence of the date of the publications, the name of the authors and the availability of the scientific glossary.
The overall opinion is much positive and we suggest this website for students and teachers.