Hands-on Science Education Training Set
Hands-on science education supports children’s learning by doing and experiencing; therefore, it is one of the most effective methods in science education, especially for children under 14. Within the project’s scope, a curriculum consisting of joint activities according to the subjects and concepts in the science curricula of different countries and a platform that includes activities prepared in line with this curriculum will be prepared.
The platform will be designed for the use of the 50 teachers participating in the project and the students of these teachers in the beginning. To be used in this initially produced platform, a science education set will be produced that will allow the target audience to perform science education remotely, with themselves or with their teachers. This set will contain experimental-based activities on science education.
The activities to be produced will be prepared based on skills and competencies, which will allow for reducing curriculum and level differences between countries and partners. The contents to be produced will be digitized in accordance with the use of the platform. Videos, interactive content, simulations, and other blended e-learning tools will be used for experiments for digitalization. These contents will consist of experiments or educational activities to be carried out on the online platform and include many activities that each student can practice at home with themselves or with their family.
These science education activities will be designed using readily available materials to avoid cost and operation, such as sending a set/box to each student or teacher. In other words, a selection of those that are compatible with the curriculum and support the science education processes of the students will be digitalized from the set to be produced. Still, also all the educational content will be included in the set as do it yourself. It will consist of experiments that can be carried out using stationery and household supplies that children and adolescents can easily acquire. Some of the activities in the training set will be formed by transferring the science experiments currently implemented by the project partners into digital, and some will be produced from scratch focused on the target audience.
Teachers and students will be able to share their experiences and build experiments and projects together in large groups or small groups via the platform. In addition to these, an output that can be easily applied and usable by anyone worldwide. The skill-based design will also minimize curriculum incompatibilities between countries’ education systems. In addition to its significant time and cost contribution, it will enable more children to Access science education tools.