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Relevant initiatives

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RELEVANT INITIATIVES FORM

Title of Initiative / Project
Zambia schools project
Name of Organiser
Cosmos Education
Start and ending date of the Initiative
2011
Level
European
Was the initiative carried out in the framework of a funded project?
No
Thematic area
Maths, Science
Language of the deliverable
English, Other non EU
Target Group
Students
Description of the initiative
Cosmos Education UK was founded in 2003. The Aims are to advance the Science and Technology education of young people in developing countries and to inspire young people to stay in school and pursue careers that may assist in the sustainable development of their communities.

Cosmos Education ran a 3-week project in Lusaka, Zambia, with a group of volunteers from the USA, UK and Zambia. The aim, as ever, was to supplement the education school students already receive with fun, hands-on experiments and activities to help make Science more real and comprehensible
The hope is that students will be encouraged to see the relevance of Science and Mathematics in everyday life, recognise their importance in the development of their own communities, and be inspired to learn and understand more in future. We place emphasis on the logical approach and critical thinking that underlie the scientific method, in the hope that the students will learn these as life skills useful for the future, whether they choose to follow a technical career or not.
They worked with two schools during the project: Munali Boys High School and Munali Girls High School.
There were two main ways in which we worked with the students: the first was through hands-on activities and discussions on Science topics within our team members' areas of expertise. This helped to reinforce concepts found in the Zambian school syllabus as well as broadening scientific knowledge beyond the classroom. The second way we worked was to offer personal help to students with their schoolwork in Mathematics and Science subjects, addressing topics and questions which they found challenging.
Subjects covered: vision, the immune system, cell biology, understanding scale, and electric motors, to name but a few. They also ran challenges and competitions for students, such as battery design, bridge-building, the tallest structure out of a single sheet of paper, and mental arithmetic challenges.
More Information
Strengths
Linking theory with practice: emphasis on the relevance of science in everyday life
Extending scientific knowledge acquired in class through
Development of critical thinking as life skills
Personalizing education
Reinforcing/ practicing/ applying the acquired knowledge
Weaknesses
Takes time
Teachers’ Opinion
Strengths
Good transferability potential in the classroom
Linking scientific knowledge learnt in classrooms with what happens in practical life
Developing life skills (logical/ critical thinking) through science
Weaknesses
Takes time to prepare extra activities for the class
Takes time to prepare extra activities for individual students
Students’ Opinion
Strengths
Attractive and accessible
Challenging activities
Emphasis on the applicability of science
Discussions on Science topics
Weaknesses
Too little time allotted to such activities

Comments on this Relevant initiatives

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Date: 2015.03.19

Posted by Ignacio Pachés Giner (Spain)

This initiative is not only helpful for children in the target group, which are the future of that nation, and therefore the volunteers are helping everyone there.

It is also important for the volunteer teachers. Because once they do these activities with these children, they will learn to teach and treat different types of kids, raised in different cultures. This may open minds as to how adapt to students.

Being with the same type of student I find myself ,as a teacher, cast to my kind of students.

For this initiative to be perfect within the current project, I think that the experience of techers should be better documented and shown, as a means to exploit it in the future.

News

Dissemination Seminar in Florence

31 October 2015 The seminar has been held in ITIS “A. Meucci” one of the schools involved within Goerudio project activities. Its main aim was to promote the results of the project toward a broad sample of stakeholders even overcrossing the number of people directly involved in the production of project outcomes. This purpose has been totally achieved especially thanks to the participation of students and teachers coming from different schools or from other classes instead of those ones directly involved within the project activities.