És(cola)Ciência - A Complementary Educational Strategy to Promote School Success
In the heart of the major interior rural area of Portugal, Beja, where school failure is one of the highest in the country, new science students, initiating the 5th grade, were surprised by Scientists at their door. The challenge was to transform them into little hands-on scientists. Playing, interacting, and dazzling while they are learning, becoming aware of their territory, and getting more softer skilled, is what is making up science classes!
Local
Portugal
Beja
Mainly rural
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
ESF : European Social Fund
És(cola)Ciência is co-financed by Portugal Inovação Social under the “Partnerships for Impact” funding instrument, through the Operational Program for Social Inclusion and Employment (Portugal 2020 and the European Social Fund).
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): EMAS - Empresa Municipal de Água e Saneamento de Beja, E.M Type of organisation: Other public institution First name of representative: Carla Last name of representative: Cavaco Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Executive Administrator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: R. Conde da Boavista nº 16 Town: Beja Postal code: 7800-456 Beja Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 925 486 055 E-mail:carla.cavaco@emas-beja.pt Website:http://www.emas-beja.pt/
Name of the organisation(s): Agrupamento de Escolas Nº 2 de Beja - Escola Básica 2,3 Mário Beirão Type of organisation: Other public institution First name of representative: Ana Cristina Last name of representative: Serrano Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Teacher and Mathematics and Natural Sciences group coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: R. de Maria Isabel Covas Lima 15 Town: Beja Postal code: 7800-631 Beja Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 963 152 091 E-mail:ana.serrano@ae2beja.pt Website:http://www.ae2beja.pt/escola-basica-mario-beirao/
Name of the organisation(s): Incubadora de Inovação Social do Baixo Alentejo Type of organisation: Social incubator First name of representative: João Last name of representative: Cascalheira Gender: Male Nationality: Portugal Function: Coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Largo de Santa Maria, 21 Town: Beja Postal code: 7800-192 Beja Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 963 604 697 E-mail:geral@iisba.org Website:http://www.iisba.org/
Name of the organisation(s): Coatl - Consultoria para o Desenvolvimento Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Bruno Last name of representative: Coutinho Gender: Male Nationality: Portugal Function: Senior Project Manager Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: R. de Pinto Bessa 248, 2º esquerdo frente Town: Porto Postal code: 4300-427 Porto Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 914 263 337 E-mail:bruno.coutinho@coatl.pt Website:http://www.coatl.pt/
Name of the organisation(s): Maria João Carapeto Type of organisation: Sporadic Service Provider First name of representative: Maria João Last name of representative: Carapeto Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Consultant/Researcher Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Av. da Liberdade, lote 160. Bairro António Sérgio Town: Évora Postal code: 7000-412 Évora Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 914 787 347 E-mail:mjoaocarapeto@gmail.com
Name of the organisation(s): CEBAL - Centro de Biotecnologia Agrícola e Agro-Alimentar do Alentejo Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Rita Last name of representative: Martins Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Researcher Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua Pedro Soares, s.n. - Campus IPBeja /ESAB, Apartado 6158 Town: Beja Postal code: 7801-908 Beja Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 964 302 505 E-mail:rita.martins@cebal.pt Website:http://www.cebal.pt/
The És(cola)Ciência project is an innovative and differentiating approach, based on scientific thinking, which explores a complementary educational strategy to promote school success in the subject of Natural Sciences, in the 2nd cycle of portuguese basic education, and it is adapted to the context of the Baixo Alentejo region, in Beja, Portugal.
Based on the social problem of school failure, with serious repercussions on the lives of the populations and the territory, this project aims to explore the application of non-formal science education methods and scientific literacy, combining the learning of contents and the approach of emerging topics, with the promotion of socio-emotional skills, the soft skills.
With a transdisciplinary team of professionals in the project, Science is introduced in natural sciences classes thought playful-scientific activities, so that students experience the curricula in a practical and simple way, stimulating their curiosity, and awakening their motivation and involvement with school. Therefore, they can have an open window to better understand the world around them, and to develop principles and values that may help to build their individuality in society.
This initiative intends to contribute with relevant impacts in terms of valuing school and learning, enabling academic, professional, social and cultural development of the individuals. Thus, contributing to the construction of fairer, more balanced, more civically active, and more environmentally conscious societies. Specifically, És(cola)Ciência accomplishments go through the increase of i) school success rate at Natural Sciences discipline; ii) students' motivation and interest in school subjects; iii) the development of specific competences for scientific literacy: knowledge, logic and rationality, communication and attitudes inherent of scientific work; iv) socio-emotional skills (such as resilience, teamwork, empathy, among others).
Children's scientific literacy
Non-formal education
Playful-scientific activities
Science
Social emotional skills
The És(cola)Ciência project is promoted by the CEBAL - Centro de Biotecnologia Agrícola e Agro-Alimentar do Alentejo, which is a non-profit R&D unit located in Beja, the biggest interior rural area of Portugal. The CEBAL develops its activity in the areas of agro-food, agroforestry, plant and animal genetics, bioinformatics and process engineering, focusing on the valorisation and sustainable use of natural resources. CEBAL develops its action in close connection with local community and local economy, taking into account the characteristics and the potential of Alentejo region. In line with the CEBAL mission, whenever possible, playful-scientific activities developed with the students at school introduce sustainability aspects, such as reusing, recycling, efficient use of resources or circularity. We do it with the materials we use on the experiments, in the speeches used with a strong sensibilization component, and by calling students to action, connecting them with nature and the territory. In addition, we introduce novel ways of looking to resources and processes by giving examples of the research that the CEBAL or other researchers do in these areas. Along with this, we work socio emotional skills with children, and we highlight here empathy. Empathy is being considered a key strength, a value skill for sustainability. Empathy-sustainability involves empathy with others and empathy with nature, mediated through place and identity. The experiments and games we perform with the students intends to promote their engagement with nature and empathy with nature, so they can feel an emotional experience of the natural world. Understand distress of an animal that is suffering the consequences of pollution of its habitat or the progressive deterioration of a natural environment or resources, are examples of it.
Science is beautiful, allow exciting and thrill experiences. Science can be very visible and connective, and that´s what És(cola)Ciência project makes use of to engage students. The activities developed, which include laboratory and non-laboratory experiments, with physical-chemical or biochemical reactions, experiments that explore biology (natural and endogenous resources, human being), provide a technical and emotional experience of learning that has impact on children behaviour. Their quality of life is positively influenced and their vulnerabilities (related to school failure, in this case) minimized.
Science-based ludic activities and the use of skills, actions and appropriate dialogues by scientists and science-related professionals produce reactions in children that can be explained as a vowel analogy AEIOU - Awareness; Enjoyment; Interest; Opinion; Understanding, as Burns, et al., http://doi.org/10.1177/09636625030122004, also found:
❖ Awareness, relevant for understanding everyday phenomena, and for making more informed and responsible decisions, namely with issues related to the territory where they live.
❖ Enjoyment, due to its playful and age-appropriate nature.
❖ Interest, triggered by the fun it provides, either by the unusual visual results or by the practical involvement of children in achieving the results.
❖ Opinion and Understanding are triggered by the results obtained, by the appropriate dialogues with the introduction of scientific concepts based on the experiments that they carried out themselves.
But experiencing Science is also about doubts, mistakes, failure, frustration, and disappointment. These feelings are also introduced to children in a ludic way, with a message that those emotions are part of the daily life and each individual must be able to managed and transform them into positive learnings. Autoregulation, resilience, and auto motivation are the social emotional skills we stimulate and work on these situations.
És(cola)Ciência is an approach that from the beginning thought about developing a strategy accessible and affordable for all. The fact of being a pilot study intend to validate a number of questions that we were speculating about and that need evidence. So that after this, it can be widely disseminated, and accessible to more schools and more children. The project is being tested in a public school (where in the Portuguese system everyone has indiscriminate access). We are working with children from different socioeconomic contexts, children of ethnicity or with special educational needs. In terms of activities, we create several experiments that mainly use recycled materials. Any teacher or parents/tutor are financially able to reproduce the science/socioemotional activities we do. The project also develop science/socio emotional workshops during school holidays, open to the community that are free of charge (although we have limited the registrations due to the capacity of the laboratories and the availability of human resources). Additionally, És(cola)Ciência also brought to children, living in the interior, opportunities for contact with science and science environments, especially to children from more disadvantaged socioeconomic strata that cannot easily travel or do not have anyone in the family that go with them, to visit a science centre or a science museum.
At school, all students (around 165 children, 7 classes) that initiated the 5th grade in the school year of 2020/2021, at Escola 2,3 Mario Beirão, in Beja, are involved in the initiative, together with the professors. Hands-on science activities complementary to the national curricular program of Natural Science, together with social emotional actions, are being developed in the classroom weekly. Additionally, we also promote science/socio emotional skills workshops during school holidays, open to kids from 6 to 12 years old. We do activities at our labs, but we also make some little journeys to other “spaces of knowledge” locally and around the region. Regularly, we invite stakeholders and other actors of the territory to go to school or to our labs and explain what their action on the territory (always in a ludic way) are, so that children can get more contact with the local and regional institutions. Moreover, we invite parents/tutors to assist to the activities in the classroom and we ask for their opinion (surveys and focus groups). Some impacts of the initiative are:
• The redution of retention rates at Natural Sciences subject.
• The trainning of socio-emotional skills.
• To inspire and training teachers.
• Change the current teaching paradigm from “teacher-centered” to “student-centered”.
• Increase the involvement of stakeholders, family, and community with school.
Feedbacks from all the people involved, and also from external people, have been very positive. They appreciate the initiative very much. Children are always looking for the activities. Teachers refer to motivation and inspiration as the major impacts for themselves, and an extra plus to students education. Parents/tutors highlight the fact children are talking about the activities/experiences all the time and that they educate/literate the family with concepts they learn. However, to recognize the factual social impact of the initiative, an social impact assessment is being conducted.
This project arises from the concerted efforts and wills of two very active actors in the region, CEBAL and EMAS de Beja. We were challenged by the Baixo Alentejo Social Innovation Incubator (IISBA), due to the initiatives that Portugal Social Innovation was rolling out. The IISBA played a key role in clarifying concepts and dynamics of social innovation, supported the application and continues to be an active partner in the execution of the project. The EMAS de Beja and the CEBAL have a close and trusting relation for many years, due to the development of several joint initiatives. In matter of social responsibility, the CEBAL has been exploring children's scientific literacy through the project “Ciência à la Carte - Cientistas de Palmo e Meio” created in 2015. The initiative promotes the interaction of children with science in a funny way. And the EMAS de Beja is committed to environmental awareness of future generations, developing several projects with social and environmental impact on the community.
És(cola)Ciência was designed by the CEBAL, with an active participation of EMAS de Beja, as a social investor, and with consultancy of an educational psychologist, Ana Cristina da Silva Fonseca, with extensive experience in developing and implementing personal and social skills programs to reduce school failure and dropping out. The school, where the initiative takes place, was selected because of complying some necessary methodological criteria. The school promptly accepted to be the host of this pilot project, and the contributions of the professors to the application were collected. Once the project was approved, in addition to the CEBAL researchers and staff, a science monitor and a psychologist were integrated in the team, and later, as consultants, a psychology researcher, Maria João Carapeto, from the University of Évora and a national company specializes in social impact assessment, the COATL.
In the design of És(cola)Ciência project, we address several areas of knowledge, including natural sciences (biology, geology, microbiology, botanic, ecology, earth science), scientific literacy, psychology (socioemotional skills) and social sciences (social innovation and social impact). Since, the promotors are mostly related with natural sciences, the introduction of humanities disciplines was a huge challenge, but that we dare to address, and make the effort to reflect, understand, and create a strategy that is inter and transdisciplinary. Since our basis to draw the project was the social problem of school failure, we tried to build a robust answer to a complex issue.
Therefore, our idea was to create a disruptive strategy, by introducing informality in formal contexts, exploring the concept of scientific literacy for children. Based on this, the pilot project was thought to carry out playful-scientific activities together with socioemotional skills actions, combining factors that are speculated to be antagonistic, ludic activity versus school learning, but that is driving to positive responses and attitudes, and confidence in relation to Science and School and to valorisation of knowledge and learning. For that, we were aware that we need proficiency in several disciplines. We formed a team of researchers, science monitors, psychologists, teachers, social impact consultants and local institutions. A joint effort of experts from different disciplines in a process of sharing their areas of expertise in the co-construction of methods and techniques adapted to the local educative reality. And in continuous monitoring and analysis of the project execution. The participatory and collaborative process has been working very well, and the key factors are in the open-minded team members for the inter and transdisciplinary approach. The project is achieving it main purposes over the promotion of school sucess, but there is always room for improvements.
We consider the project an innovative response, since the approach developed focuses on promoting school success, fighting school failure, through scientific validation of actions and methods from non-formal education in science and scientific literacy, combining the learning of scientific content with the development of socio-emotional skills (soft skills). Additionally, inter and transdisciplinary approaches are employed in the project management and in the validation of the relations between the elements of trinomial suggested: ludic-scientific activities – social and emotional competences – school success. Moreover, És(cola)Ciência differs from the traditional responses, which are mostly developed by public initiatives and consist on closed strategies, taking place within school community, developed by teachers, educational psychologists, among other internal educational agents, with very little or non-interaction with the territory or its actors. Additionally, the current national education system has little, if any, focus on the development of social emotional skills, neither using the emerging knowledge or by connection to research and development institutions.
The whole initiative may be easily replicated or transferred to other places, groups of students and contexts. However, a previous study of the places and the contexts, meetings up with professors and visiting the schools are needed to adjust, if necessary, activities and speeches, and to set up the implementation strategy. Other forms of replicability that we are still working on, are the development of training action to teachers, monitors, educators, and the creation of physical or digital materials with playful activities from science and social emotional skills, so that the educative community may use as a reference.
És(cola)Ciência project materializes into a pilot study that intends to scientifically validate the introduction, in school environment, of actions and methods from non-formal science education, i.e., an education not only centred on the knowledge from the books, but that explores an out-of-school curriculum and concepts of " hands-on” and “learning by doing”. These concepts are still little explored in formal education in Portugal, but they have been showing to have a great impact on children's cognitive and emotional development. The methodology used to create and implement the project was based on scientific method. First, we OBSERVED the territory in terms of education, and we got to know the state of the art in terms of school failure in Alentejo. Alentejo is one of the regions with the highest school failure rates in Portugal, and Baixo Alentejo area is the most affected. It is from the 2nd cycle (5th and 6th portuguese grade) that retention and dropout rates are among the highest. Based on that social problem, we formulated our QUESTION: Does developing playful-scientific activities, complementary to formal education, change student's behaviour towards school and increase school success? The HYPOTHESIS was then: the introduction of ludic experiences into formal teaching methods contributes to school success and the development of socio-emotional skills (soft skills.) We set up an experiment for our pilot study that, briefly, included,
• Target Audience: 5th and 6th year students in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 school years
• Location: Escola Básica 2,3 Mário Beirão, in Beja
• Subject: Natural Science
• Transdisciplinary team: Researchers, Science Monitor and Psychologist, Teachers, consultants, and stakeholders from the region
• Methods: playful-scientific activities adjusted to the programmatic content of national curriculum and socio emocional related activities (experiments, group dynamics, games, quizzes). Application of evaluation instruments.
School is a very important social space for children and young people in the construction of cognitive and social development and, consequently, in the enhancement of a more responsible and economically active society. The impact of school failure tends to lead to a school dropout, amplifying a social problem that is portrayed in a society with low academic qualifications, leading to less qualified jobs and a greater risk of unemployment, less political and civically participation, marginalization, lack of sensibility for nature, among others, which fragilize a society.
És(cola)Ciência is a local solution that contribute to global challenges such as school failure, the lack of scientific literacy and socioemocional skills. És(cola)Ciência intends to contribute to the social problem of school failure by using children's scientific literacy as a tool to promote school success. Children's scientific literacy is already assuming the status of the main purpose of science education today. An education in sciences, not only centered on book knowledge, but on a perspective that allows everyone to be able to use scientific knowledge, mobilizing knowledge and skills related to the field of Science and Technology, at daily life. It becomes imperative to draw up strategies to link Science and Technology at the local, regional, national, European and international level, in order to equalize educational opportunities for citizens, regardless of their geographic location or socioeconomic context.
By participating in this project, students have the opportunity to develop principles and values, such as the respect for knowledge and for others. Respect for the natural and cultural heritage, leading to ecological and social awareness. And to the construction of their identity and civic intervention in a responsible, supportive and criticism way.
És(cola)Ciência has two main indicators/evidence to show its success:
1) Decrease of school failure rate at Natural Sciences subject on the 2nd cycle, by at least 5% when compared to the average of the 3 years prior to the intervention (2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020);
2) Final social impact report.
The first indicator has already been achieved. In the end of last school year, the students metrics in the 6th grade showed that the failure rate decreased on 6,7%, after the two years of the project implementation, overcoming the proposed percentage of 5%. This is an important indicator showing the project impact in the promotion of school success, fighting the social problem of failure.
In terms of psychological and social impact, the results obtained so far showed that students and teachers were very happy and motivated in participating in the project. Students are enjoying the activities very much and demonstrate to be learning with És(cola)Ciência action, and recognize the improvement of their social emotional skills. Teachers indicate that the hands-on activities are well constructed and adapted to the Natural Science program, and they feel inspired by them. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the project team had to adjust the activities to the online, and was able to do it. This showed the versatility and adaptability of the methodology used, also potentiate the promotion of digital skills on children, and, surprisingly, it also enhanced the closer involvement of the family in the development of the experiments at home. The creativity and originality of works that we received from students and their parents/tutors is worth of reference. In this last year of the project implementation, we are focus on some aspects that during the pandemic crisis limited the action. Social emotional skills were the most affected topic and need more dedicated work with the students. In addition, team work, transdisciplinary, also need more time of work, so that all results may be
The work És(cola)Ciência is doing by performing playful-scientific experiments and socioemotional learning related to sustainability, help students to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that promote ways to think, plan and act with empathy, responsibility, and care about planet’s present and future state. As previously stated, one of the social emotional skills that we are working the most with children is empathy. And empathy has being positively connected with sustainability and related issues.
