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• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Article

  Is art a "good" mediator in a Science Festival?

  by Fabienne Crettaz von Roten , Olivier Moeschler

  This paper relates to a special case of science-society mediation set up during the Science et Cité festival 2005. This national event took place in about twenty cities in Switzerland to promote a closer cooperation between science and society via art (theatre, music, dance, exhibitions, cinema, etc.), in order to reach the population at large. Results on the profile of the public, the role played by the cultural institutions involved, the motives of the visitors and the role of art in the science-society dialogue show that the goals aimed at by the festival's organisers were only partially reached. Moreover, the analyses shed light on the complex relation between art, science and society in public understanding of science activities.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Article

  CNRS researchers' popularization activities: a progress report

  by Pablo Jensen , Yves Croissant

  We have analyzed the popularization activities undertaken by ten thousand CNRS researchers by means of their annual reports for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. This is the first time that such an extensive statistical study on science popularization practices is carried out. Our main findings are : - the majority of researchers is not involved in popularization (51% has not done any popularization over the three-year period, two thirds have been involved in no more than one popularization action). - popularization practices are extremely diverse, both at the individual level (we have identified three subpopulations that feature distinctive attitudes towards popularization), and at the level of scientific disciplines (researchers in Humanities are twice as active as the average), as well as in laboratories or geographical regions. - the number of actions reported in 2005 greatly increased compared to 2004 (+ 26%), while they slightly diminished in 2006.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  Scientific education and European citizenship. Suggestions and results from the European project SEDEC

  by Roberto Ceriani

  Two concepts seemingly distant from each other, scientific education and European citizenship, have been the basis for "SEDEC - Science Education for the Development of European Citizenship", a European project funded by the European Commission in the framework of the Socrates/Comenius programme, aiming at producing training material addressed to European teachers. Started in autumn 2005, the project will end in 2008 with an in-service training course for European teachers and educators.

  European citizenship and active citizenship: an ever open debate

  by Lauretta D'Angelo

  Science popularization and European citizenship in Poland

  by Jacek Piotr Szubiakowski

  Science and scientists in the drawings of European children

  by Paola Rodari

  What is a scientist’s job? From the drawings to the citizenship

  by Etienne Bolmont

  Teachers' perception of the European scientists

  by Daniele Gouthier

  From the perception of science to the design of teaching materials

  by Laura Dumbrăveanu

  Debating as an educational method to science and citizenship

  by Sara Calcagnini

  School staff training: the opportunities offered by National Agencies in European countries

  by Chris Souvlis

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  Science popularization and European citizenship in Poland

  by Jacek Piotr Szubiakowski

  The idea to link European citizenship and science education is surely new and uncommon in Poland, but we think, as SEDEC project, that can enrich both the panorama of science popularization outside and inside school system. I checked carefully curricula for every stage of school education looking for the topics concerning the developing of the European citizenship. I found that they are usually connected to the history, geography and some activities developing of the knowledge about generally defined citizenship. The spare topics connected directly to the science are present especially in grammar school curriculum. They may be divided into three groups: exploiting the common heritage, common object of interest and scientific community respectively. In that paper I would like to show how the activities in each of the group may influence the EU citizenship developing process. I am going to emphasize the good choice of science as a context or a medium for EU citizenship education. It may be an important point especially in Central Europe. Additionally I would like to present some auxiliary events that are enable through the external educational resources such as museum and planetarium.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Article

  Science on the net: an analysis of the websites of the European public research institutions

  by Laura Massoli

  This article introduces a study on the websites of several European public research institutions that aims at identifying the science communication model chosen and implemented online with the purpose of reaching different target publics. The analytical approach takes into account a number of indicators: from the institutional identity to the scientific features, from the interactive services to the internationalisation level, in order to evaluate whether the web provides an added value in the adopted communication model and in building a relation with the users. Lights and shades emerge from this study in which good practices side examples of a much weaker science communication approach, outlining a general context where a public research institution website has been still used as a presentation tool and its interactive opportunities have not been capitalised.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  European citizenship and active citizenship: an ever open debate

  by Lauretta D'Angelo

  In the course of the last decade the European debate on the concept of citizenship has shown that a definition of this concept in strictly legal and jurisprudence terms is reductive. Indeed a behavioral element is present, which goes beyond the defence and request for defence of rights and duties, but actually stresses the importance of acting within a community (or within several communities). A citizenship belonging to a given space/time context which, to be authentic, requires know-how and know-how-to-be that can be gained in different training opportunities (formal, informal etc.) with various active learning methodologies and through experience. The SEDEC project aims to investigate which teaching methodologies and activities specifically developed for the teaching of sciences can be applied in other learning contexts, in order to sustain actions for developing an active citizenship.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  What is a scientist’s job? From the drawings to the citizenship

  by Etienne Bolmont

  IUFM is a centre for the in-service training of teachers and the development of didactic research. IUFM contribution to the SEDEC project is essentially built on a reflexion on educational implications of the links between science and European citizenship. We are convinced that European citizenship may be developed in scientific activities in school, by the introduction of communication moments, where pupils have to express and defend their ideas, and also to understand and accept the others’ ones. We have implemented two activities using the results of the SEDEC survey on science perception, that make the pupils get a better view on scientific research, especially in the knowledge of two scientific “jobs”, astronomer and botanist. Our approach consists of allowing the children express their conceptions of these jobs, of organising a debate to clarify these ideas, and of confronting them with other pupils’ opinions in Europe, with the history of the involved science and with direct testimonies of scientists. The project should be pursued in allowing classes in Europe to communicate about a scientific problem and so, to live their European citizenship.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  Teachers' perception of the European scientists

  by Daniele Gouthier

  The first step of the SEDEC project has been a survey on teachers and pupils perception of science, scientists, and the European dimension of science. Different research actions have been organized for the different targets, and have been held in the six countries involved in the project: Czech Republic, France, Italy, Portugal, Poland and Romania. This article will present the results of a questionnaire distributed between European teachers. A research on the scientific imagery should have an opposite perspective to the one of a teacher at school; whereas the latter, the keeper of a knowledge, has the usual task of transferring and checking the knowledge in their students, a researcher has to record and describe their interior world relating to science – the information, but especially the images, the expectations, the emotions related to it.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Jun 21, 2007 Category: Article

  Museums for Science Education: can we make the difference? The case of the EST project

  by Maria Xanthoudaki , Brunella Tirelli , Patrizia Cerutti , Sara Calcagnini

  This paper addresses the role of museums in education in science and technology through the discussion of a specific project entitled EST “Educate in Science and Technology”. The Project puts together methodologies and activities through which museums can be used as resources for long-term project work. In-service training for teachers, work in class with learning kits or with materials brought in by a Science Van, and visits to the museum are planned and developed jointly by museum experts and teachers. The Project proposes a teaching and learning model which sees the museum experience as central and integral part of a teaching and learning process with more effective outcomes. The analysis of the Project activities and methodologies is based on the work carried out at the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci, which perceives the learner (the visitor) at the heart of its educational methodologies and provision.

  Volume 6 • Issue 02 • 2007

• Date of publication Jun 21, 2007 Category: Commentary

  The first kiss of science - From interactivity to dialogue

  by Juan Nepote

  In the Rafael Nieto Auditorium of the National Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi Mexico, few chairs are empty. The room is full of Astrophysics professors, Solid State of Matter, Elementary Particles, Fluid Mechanics, etc. It is the 49th National Congress of Physic. Today ­extraordinarily- it has slip into the program an analysis round table about the new outlines in science museums in Mexico.

  Volume 6 • Issue 02 • 2007