Ciência Viva evaluated from NOT-prosjektet

I want to thank the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences which, through its secretary general Hein Johnson, has invited me to take part of and contribute to this conference.

In a letter from Hein Johnson three areas are mentioned wich are especially important to deal with:

• Description of the national project
• Results and evaluation of the project
• Assessment of Ciência Viva by comparison with experiences from the Swedish SciTech project

Assignment

The SciTech Project is a joint commission from the Government to the National Agency for Education and the National Agency for Higher Education. The commission was first given in 1993 on a five year basis, and was extended for another five year period in 1999. It ends up in december 2003.

The commission was given in order to stimulate the interest in science and technology .It implies a joint responsibility of the two agencies involved.

In the commission, the Government emphasizes the need of society for people educated in the SciTech fields in order to secure the economic growth of the country. But it also emphasizes the importance of a general knowledge within the field, which will make it possible to exert an influence on the development in a democratic society and to take a stand in different political issues.

In the Government directives the assignment is described in two parts:

To develop teaching methods within the field, so that children, young people and adults get the possibility to approach SciTech in a stimulating and thought-provoking manner. A guiding principle is that the working methods in school should be connected with the reality of the pupils.

To modify the attitudes towards SciTech in society in a positive way and to increase the interest and curiosity about the SciTech field among the public.

 Resources and organisation

The resources for the project amount to 5 million Swedish crowns, that is around 500 000 euros, a year. Up to now, the two agencies have contributed with some personnel resources, e.g. project leaders and experts. Project assistants have been employed by the project.

In order to support the project group a so-called SciTech council was established towards the end of 1999. The council acts as a source of ideas and as ambassadors for the project. There are 8 members of the council, representing schools, universities, local and national science centres. The members of the council take on certain tasks and we can enjoy their contact nets. One member of the council is present here to-day, namely Svein Sjøberg.

The project organisation including only 4 persons is not sufficient for work in a national perspective. Therefore an active cooperation with other actors in the SciTech field is necessary. We have frequent contacts with the Ministry of education, with the national resource centres in the different science subjects, with local so-called science centres dispersed all over the country, with teacher training institutions and other departements in the SciTech field at the universities. We also cooperate with local authorities and trade and industry. Finally, we have daily contacts with teachers, pupils and parents in schools.

Activities

The work within the project has been organized in a number of activities. Some of them have been extensive and some have been small, some have been on a long-term basis while others have been temporary. In many cases the initiative originates from the project and its members, while the impulse may have come from the outside in other cases. For the practical realization external experts in various areas are engaged.

In the following I will mention a few of the activities:

In the development we want to bring about we think that one of the key groups is teachers and teacher trainers. Therefore, our project has supported a number of activities implying in-service training of teachers and teacher trainers. Some examples:

• Series of seminars for teacher trainers at the university institutes of education. The series comprises lectures and discussions concerning didactical questions and includes a smaller individual project for every participant as well. The series embraces eight two days sessions distributed over a period of two years. 80 teacher trainers from all over the country have participated.

• Evaluation of science education. This is an in-service series for teachers at the middle level. The teachers are trained to evaluate and assess their own teaching.

• In-service training in science teaching of class teachers at lower and middle level.

• Regional conferences concerning science education. Presently a series of four conferences in different parts of the country is in progress. The first was held in the middle of October in Luleå, in the northern part of Sweden. The conferences are arranged in cooperation with the National Resource Centre for Physics. Contributions are made by experts engaged by the organizers as well as by local teachers.

Already during the first part of the project, we had the ambition to encourage local activities in the different districts. However, these activities declined as time went by. Towards the end of 2001 we resumed this work and invited all 289 local districts in Sweden to become so-called SciTech districts. We demanded that a board would be established in every district , consisting of politicians and representatives of trade and industry, of schools and of culture. This group was thought to vitalize and coordinate the SciTech work in the district. We also demanded that a coordinator be appointed who would also be the contact person for the project. In return, the SciTech project was to send information and reports of various activities, contribute to local and regional activities, make participation in national activities possible and so on. We got positive answers from about one fourth of the districts in the country, roughly 70 districts. Now regular contacts are established between the project and these districts.

To reach the pupils’ parents we have cooperated with some Science Centres around a model for parents´ meetings called "the active parents´ meeting" The intention is of course to get the parents involved in the SciTech education and to create a positive attitude towards this.

Publications

For information and inspiration, above all for people working in the SciTech field but also for the public, we publish The SciTech paper, in Swedish NOT-bladet. We print 20 000 copies, from now on 4 times a year. NOT-bladet contains popular science articles but also informaton about and reports from activities within the project. There is also information about other SciTech activities.

In this issue was treated the important theme "language" with focus on language in science and technology.

The SciTech project has given a number of asssignments to realize certain investigations. By way of example one investigation can be mentioned wich treats young people’s attitude, "Ungdomskultur och naturvetenskap", and another making an inventory of teaching aids in science education. The reports from such investigations are made accessible in SciTech reports, so-called NOT-häften.

International work

In the international work we have given assignments to people to attend or contribute to international conferences or to study educational activities in other countries. This has contributed to the competence of the participants and the project group, but has also widened our contacts and given experiences from other countries. During the last years we have sent representatives to Singapore, China, Germany, England and the US, and now Norway.

I began to work in the SciTech project in August 2000. Therefore I have no personal experiences from the activities in the project before that day. Before entering the SciTech project, I had been working as a school developer in Uppsala, which is the fourth biggest district in Sweden. Uppsala has two universities. During that time I had no any contact with the SciTech project. I concluded that the project ought to get in closer contact with the work and development that were carried out in schools.

The first part of the SciTech project was evaluated by professor Svein Sjøberg. His results are documented in the booklet "NOT-prosjektet sett utenfra". Some of the conclusions in this report are:

• The SciTech project has established itself as a promotor and initiator of activities in the SciTech field.

• Direct estimations of the effects of the project are not possible to make, but it can be noted that the number of young persons choosing to study science or technology has not declined in Sweden to the same extent as in many other countries.

• The proportion of girls choosing SciTech branches has increased.

• It is important to get more international contacts (and to develop them).

• The publications are of great importance, but the information could be even more widespread by a small newsletter which could be published on the home page as well.

As concerns the second part of the project, no total evaluation has yet been accomplished. Slightly more than a year remains until the project will come to an end. For the time being, we plan a more careful evaluation of a number of activities. Some activities have, however, been evaluated as they have been accomplished, above all those intended for personnel of schools and educational institutions.

Changes of conditions and direction

When the commissions for the SciTech project were written, qualitative changes which are difficult to measure and evaluate were emphasised. During the last years, the aspects of evaluation have successively been changed towards quantitatively measurable results. The commission for the SciTech project is formulated in a way that makes it difficult to measure to what extent the goal has been reached.

During the time of the project, there has also been a change of focus. The interest was first directed towards the university and older pupils at school, but is now more centered around younger children. We know that an interest is aroused early. Development of contents and didactics for younger children has become more and more important. How much happens at this age?

Suggestions for improvement

With my present perspective on the work in the SciTech project, I think that it was wise to share the responsibility between two authorities. This, however, also demands a managable organisation of the project. Here we have had some problems to deal with.

With the answers at hand some improvements may be suggested:

• The work with the SciTech districts should have started earlier, to a large extent

• More information about the project could have been given in the SciTech paper. This, however, will soon change.

• The work with the study advisors should be focused as their role is important for recruitement issues. Presently, we cooperate with another project in this matter.

• The network of the project organisation could be used to assist the SciTech districts to establish networks of their own.

• The work towards media should have been more emphasized. However, the media mostly set the rules of the debate.

• Gender and SciTech has been a difficult area. Even if we have done several short-term efforts, very much is still to be done.

 

Comparison between the SciTech project and Ciência Viva

My knowledge about Ciência Viva is limited and my comments will be coloured by that. I have only read about Ciência Viva and never had the opportunity to follow the various activities in real life. However, I had the opportunity to visit the exhibition in Lisbon a few weeks ago, but it is still difficult for me to make an adequate comparison.

If I, despite this, am going to make an attempt to compare NOT and Ciência Viva, the first difference to point out is the size of the projects. While the NOT project includes only 5 million Swedish crowns a year, Ciência Viva comprises 5 % of the total funding for scientific research in Portugal. This difference is also reflected in the number of persons engaged in the central organization of the projects.

Another difference is the organization of the projects. The NOT-project is completely managed within the educational system, while Ciência Viva is an association of research laboratories and governmental agencies for science, technology and innovation.

It could be favourable when trying to implement new curricula and regulations to have a more centralized system like the Swedish project. I can also see advantages with the Portuguese model.

The target groups of both projects are the schools and the general public. Both projects seem to place great emphasis on the schools. Here, Ciência Viva mainly aims at attaining a science teaching with more experiments while the SciTech project supports a variety of activities in the schools.

One of the purposes of the SciTech project is to create a more positive attitude towards science and technology in general, that is, in society in general. This means that the target group will be all citizens, as well as trade and industry, media, universities, and so on. From the project we make efforts to keep the SciTech questions alive in the public debate. In Ciência Viva, a number of science and technology campaigns and exhibitions for the general public are realized.

I think that the active participation of political, industrial and cultural authorities and workers is invaluable for attaining legitimacy and spread of the work.

A main direction in the SciTech project is in-service training of teachers and teacher trainers. Presently, Ciência Viva seems to support mainly the different projects with funds intended for equipment.

I think that support for in-service training of personnel is important. A recently published report from the research unit at the National Agency for Educatuion shows that in-service training of teachers gives the highest output for the invested resources.

Our ambition in the SciTech project is to take the gender aspects into account in all our activities. This has proved fairly difficult to realize, but there is a strong wish to do so. In Ciência Viva, it is not considered necessary to stimulate further the participation of women in science and technology.

The importance of this point is of course dependant on the existing situation. In Sweden, the girls and young women are well represented in science on the lower levels of the educational system, but there is a great deficit in the technological field.

In most cases the initiatives for activities in the SciTech project are taken by the project group (often based upon suggestions from outside), and commissions are given to various actors in order to realize them. This gives a certain control of the activity, and a possibility to guide it in the direction that we desire (in our case often towards development of teaching methods). Within Ciência Viva it seems as if the activities to a very large extent is based upon initiatives from individual teachers or schools or other institutions which of course brings about a high degree of engagement but also makes it more difficult to direct the process in the direction desired. As Ciência Viva is not directly connected to formal education, this is maybe less important in that case.

For the SciTech project I think that a certain degree of control is desirable and that it makes an implementation of the relevant regulations possible at the same time.

I know that spread of information about the activities and the results within Ciência Viva is handled by Ciência Viva Forum. Events and campaigns for the public are advertised. I don´t know how the home pages are used in this respect . I don´t know either whether there is some printed material. In the SciTech project we have, after long discussions and an extensive analysis, rejected the idea of creating a home page of our own. The reasons for this were an insufficient economy and the difficulties to keep the home page up to date after the end of the project. The project gives information mainly by the SciTech paper. In connection with the SciTech district activity we will create a network where the districts can exchange ideas and experiences.

Many nursery schools and schools do not have a satisfactory access to computers. I think that printed material so far is the most effective way to supply information concerning projects and ideas.

Contacts with other actors in the SciTech field as National Centres and local Science Centres is an important part of the activities in the SciTech project. In Ciência Viva the local Science Centres seem to be an integrated part of the project. As Science Centres are a useful way to reach the public, this seems to be a way to broaden the contacts of Ciência Viva with the public. In Sweden, the local Science Centres work totally independently of the SciTech project, and they may act under governmental, local or private management.

The National Centres for the different subjects in Sweden possess great expertise in both professional and pedagogical issues and they may be a good help when developing contents, methods, courses, and so on.

The existence of National Centres for different subjects are also of great value as they can support the project. Above all, however, the National Centres should act as an important part in the development work which constantly must go on within the SciTech education in order to satisfy the needs of our pupils as well as of society.