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THE ESERO PROJECT IN BELGIUM
Rodrigo Alvarez Royal Observatory of Belgium
G-HOU2014
September 08-12 2014, Estoril, Portugal
The ESERO project
• Educational project supported by the European Space Agency (ESA)
• ESERO stands for European Space Education Resource Office
The ESERO project
• Currently ESA has established seven ESERO national offices which cover ten ESA Member States: Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Finland, Netherlands,
Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and UK.
• Aim of ESERO: space-based education that supports the specific educational needs of the various Member States (all having different educational
systems, different school curricula and different languages).
ESERO in Belgium
• ESA and the Royal Observatory of Belgium agreed in 2006 to launch a Belgian ESERO Office at the Planetarium of Brussels
• Two full-time collaborators (Dutch- and French-speaking) were hired as ESERO Office Managers
What B-ESERO offers
• Major issue : choice between curriculum options (latin / science / economy) is made at the age of 12
the sooner the better: make pupils feel more comfortable and familiar with sciences already at the primary level
What B-ESERO offers
• But lack of confidence at the primary level to tackle the “space” theme in the classroom
B-ESERO provides teacher trainings
What B-ESERO offers
• Provide the high-quality science trainings required by primary level teachers
establishment of an educative partnership with science education experts
(i) train the trainers to adopt IBSE (inquiry-based science education) methods
(ii) guarantee the content & quality of the trainings
What B-ESERO offers
• Teacher trainings focus on hands-on activities
What B-ESERO offers
• Need for ready-to-use science-related educational material referring explicitly to topics of the curricula
elaboration of educational material & evaluation tools
(i) elaborated by inspectors and teachers
(ii)clear references to the Belgian curricula: teachers know when and how to use the material
Specific educational material
Specific educational material
What B-ESERO offers
• Other issues:
(i) no access to laboratories for experimentation
(ii) limited time devoted to a given project
(ii) limited budgets
Funding: a few k€ were distributed to the schools willing to start classroom projects: material for experiments, books, visit to science centers…
Enhancing the impact
• Strong bias towards well-informed and interested teachers :
The trainings / resources / calls for projects might reach mainly the most enthusiastic teachers and not the bulk of (reluctant) teachers
Impact/effort ratio lowered
Enhancing the impact
• Establishment of an educative partnership with the public education authorities:
they formally facilitate, endorse and authorize access to the national school systems and to official teacher training institutions
The “science@school” project
• French-speaking community:
- Teachers have to participate to 4 teacher trainings per year : in-service training
- B-ESERO has established a close partnership with the education authorities
“Sciences à l’école” project
The “science@school” project
• Strong involvement of the inspectors: “educative supervisor” whose job is to visit the classrooms and check if the teachers correctly follow the curriculum
teachers pay more attention to inspectors than to external trainers: non-interested teachers are reached
in-service teacher trainings: scientific methodology in order to improve self-confidence
each participating school has to start a 1+ year-long classroom project with hands-on experiments
trainings for school directors: how to highlight the “science” theme in the school project document
The “science@school” project
• A total of 111 schools involved in the project
• Around 400 teachers trained per year
• Creation of a label “Science school”
• Dissemination to the German-speaking community
Belgian ESA astronaut
Frank De Winne
presenting the label
« Science school »
The “science@school” project
Astronomy workshop for teacher trainees
• Dutch-speaking community:
- No in-service training & no educative supervisors
- B-ESERO has established a partnership with most of the teacher education institutions
pre-service teacher education
Astronomy workshop for teacher trainees
Astronomy workshop for teacher trainees
B-ESERO : other activities
• ASGARD project: launching of a weather balloon with in-board instrument elaborated in the classroom
ASGARD
B-ESERO : other activities
• Belgian CanSat competition: mini-satellite, integrated within the volume of a soft drink can
CanSat
B-ESERO : other activities
• Visit of the first Belgian astronaut in the classroom
Dirk Frimout
Outcomes: science fair
• The ESERO activities really helped the previously reluctant teachers to consider the teaching of science from a renewed point of view
organization of a science fair with most of the schools involved in the project participating
Outcomes: science fair
children (and their teachers) were really proud to present their own project to their families (or colleagues)
a few years before, those teachers were absolutely not enthusiastic about science, space or astronomy!
video link (1 min)
Conclusions
• B-ESERO is a highly successful project thanks to:
- The possibility to have 2 full-time people managing and coordinating the activities
- The establishment of a large network of valuable partners
- The support of ESA: trainings, material, events, funding of classroom projects
[email protected] - www.esa.int/esero
European Space Education Research Office An education project of the European Space Agency