News
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Science on Stage Festival 2019!
Every two years, Science on Stage Europe brings together science teachers from all over Europe to exchange best practice teaching ideas and concepts with passionate colleagues from more than 30 countries.The aim is to improve the quality of STEM teaching by:
- enabling science teachers to exchange teaching concepts and experience
- inspiring and enthusing science teachers
- informing teachers about wider scientific research
The ultimate goal is to improve teaching in order to enable more students to gain the skills they need for a challenging future and encourage them to consider a career in science, ICT or engineering.
The Festival is the culmination of national events in the participating countries. Following the principle “from teachers for teachers” the festival is also a starting point for a wide range of national follow-up activities as the best teaching concepts find their way to teacher trainings and teaching materials after the event.
Each edition of Science on Stage Festival is held in a different country. Portugal and the municipality of Cascais are the hosts 31 October - 3 November but tweets of projects are now being added daily to @SonS2019 and links to videos to Facebook.
Some examples from this week include:
- SensoryMath-Lapbook, Ukraine: a visual and tactile support helps children with autism to stay focused
- Neo and Geo, Spain: students design and mount a radio connected satellite station with low-cost materials!
- “Oh that gravity”, Greece: the result of a cooperation of three teachers and their schools. In this project, students learn about the concept of gravity.
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Digital Green: a global development organization empowering smallholder farmers
Digital Green is a global development organization that empowers smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the collective power of technology and grassroots-level partnerships.Founded in 2006 as a project of Microsoft Research to test if there was a role for technology in small-scale agricultural systems, they partnered with their first NGO partner, Green Foundation and became an independent non-profit in 2008.
They began by working with frontline extension workers, training them to produce and share videos featuring local farmers. This led to significant increases in information sharing, best-practice adoption rates and, above all, sustainable development at scale.
They undertake rigorous data analysis and farmer feedback to continually challenge their assumptions and identify new ways that technology coupled with local knowledge can support development in agriculture, food and nutrition security.
To date (2019) they have worked with more than 1.5 million smallholder farmers – eighty percent of whom are women – and have trained approximately 15,000 frontline workers in digital extension in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and feel they are just getting started!
View the full Digital Green profile on NIDA.
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SDG Global Action (ACT4SDGS), 20 - 30 September 2019
The Global Week of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – or SDG Action Week – provides an opportunity to highlight how libraries and related information access services are contributing to make development happen.Supported by the United Nations and major civil society networks engaged in delivering the SDGs the goal of ACT4SDGS is to encourage actions around the world focused on advancing the SDGs, from raising awareness to practical delivery.
IFLA has produced a short guide to the Action Week, including ideas on how you can get involved and get your actions registered. Find out more in their guide ‘Get into SDG Action Week’ . You can also register your actions through IFLA’s Partner Page providing a great opportunity to put information activities on the map.
Join the global action and add your activity directly to the global map of all SDG actions.
#ACT4SDGS
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Ocean Literacy: 2019 Global Ocean Science Education (GOSE) Workshop
The GOSE Workshop 2019 will be held from November 13-15 in Washington, DC. Specific Workshop goals include:- bringing together the ocean science, education, policy, and business/industry sectors;
- fostering the integration of research results from the seabed mapping and ocean observing communities into education resources for enhanced ocean literacy and decision making; and,
- identifying business and industry needs that will lead to the development of an international certificate course for business leaders and policymakers.
History of the GOSE Workshops
Previous GOSE Workshops have identified and built consensus related to three major priorities for international collaborative ocean science education efforts:
- The Ocean and Human Health, including Coastal Resiliency;
- The Ocean’s Role in Climate Change and the Effect of Climate Change on Ocean Systems;
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- Biodiversity, including Food Security & Fisheries.
The 2017 conference was dedicated to Ocean Literacy, with development of the Ocean Literacy Network and provision of a wide range of activities and resources available from the website.
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Learning made fun with science and dance: inspiring women share their talents in Zambia
Lubuto Library Partners in Zambia was delighted to host Samantha Hyde, formerly the Director of Education of the Colorado Ballet, for a 3-week internship in July to work with Lubuto’s early childhood programmes.Co-facilitated by Brendah Mkandawire, Lubuto’s Family Literacy Coordinator, Samantha and Brendah enabled kids to explore their own styles of creative movement, conduct colour- mixing experiments, make rice “dance” with baking soda, and develop some dancing of their own during themed story-times!
Samantha reports that it was an experience of mutual learning: “One of the most rewarding parts was working directly with Brendah and learning from her. We both brought activity ideas to the table, tried them together with kids, and made decisions on what to include in the curriculum. Watching Brendah get as excited about the ‘magic milk’ experiment as me helped to form a connection right from the start…. We both learned a great deal from one another.”
Brendah and Samantha jointly developed a written early childhood curriculum, focused on music, movement, and scientific inquiry for use in future programming and training.
View news article: Lubuto Library Partners
The work of Lubuto Library Partners spans sectors, including health, education, OVCY support, arts and culture and technology, with a particular emphasis placed on programming that responds to the needs of the most vulnerable.
- Girls
- Homeless and street children
- Rural and isolated children
- Out-of-school children
- Deaf children
- Children affected by AIDS
- Young mothers
- Babies and young children
- Children with disabilities
- Communities and families
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Open Learning Exchange Nepal (OLE Nepal) develops two new initiatives
OLE Nepal, a social benefit organization dedicated to enhancing education quality and access through the integration of technology in classrooms has recently embarked on two new projects:Game development for middle school maths and science
MIT has recently awarded a grant to OLE including the time of two MIT students working in Nepal for a summer internship to share experiences on game-based learning. In particular, developing new games for middle school math and science subjects that are now being prototyped and tested with students through the e-paath programme.
Digital EGR
OLE Nepal has partnered with ONGD-FNEL, Luxembourg for a 5 year programme developing interactive children’s stories and digital learning games to support early grade reading in Nepali. The idea is to help children learn how to read and write in Nepali through fun stories with familiar characters and environment. Currently, six stories with various games are in development. The team is also working on creating original stories and artwork for the project.
All OLE resources can be downloaded free of charge
Learn More about:
E-Paath - resources available in Nepali, Chepang and English and accessed online from OLE Nepal’s free digital library, E-Pustakalaya. It can also be downloaded and used for free.
E-Pustakalaya - an extensive free and open digital library with thousands of age-appropriate books and educational resources, course content and reference materials.
Teacher Training Programmes - a three-stage training programme to support teachers with little or no prior experience with technology to gain the skills and confidence necessary to improve teaching-learning process and enhance education.
Technology Infrastructure - deploying technology infrastructure in under-resourced rural schools is not an easy task. OLE seeks innovative solutions based on low-power, low-cost and durable technology that fit the requirements of rural schools.
OLE's interactive digital content E-Paath, and digital library, E-Pustakalaya, can also be accessed in Nepali.
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Examining Scientific Literacy through New Media
The results of a new study examining the quality of science-oriented new media and measuring the scientific literacy level of Chinese college students have just been published.Undertaken by teams in China and Texas, the main findings include that:
- science-oriented new media have become frequently used channels for scientific knowledge among college students. As two representative types, science-oriented websites had higher quality than science-oriented microblogs.
- students who obtained scientific knowledge from science-oriented websites had significantly higher scientific literacy level than the non-users. However, whether students used science-oriented microblogs or not did not bring such difference.
- students' identification ability for science-oriented new media was important. Together with their education and major, identification ability was correlated with students' scientific literacy.
The research concluded that the quality of new media varies and considerable improvements are required to expand the impact of new media to science communication. Moreover, attention should be directed toward the credibility of scientific content sources.
- A research paper summarising the study is available (open access)
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/109948
EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2019, 15(12), em1785 ISSN:1305-8223
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The ‘Recycle Namibia Forum’
The Recycle Namibia Forum (RNF) is a non-profit membership association founded in 2011 to promote and coordinate recycling initiatives and projects in Namibia. Although recycling is one important step towards the promotion of environmental integrity, RNF is also working on the other components, namely refuse, reduce, reuse, rethink, repair and re-gift.RNF aims to ‘inspire the nation to join hands today for a cleaner Namibia tomorrow’ and foster a national network promoting effective and sustainable waste management.
Among the initiatives supported by the Forum, there is a household batteries collection, promotion of reusable shopping bags, a Schools Recycling Project, a Zero Waste store and the ‘Say No To Straw Campaign’ to protect Namibian’s wildlife.
The RNF website also offers the first national Green Directory which serves to list all the organisations and companies ranging from waste collectors to environmental management services, suppliers of ‘green’ products and more. Namibians citizens can search and locate, for example, the closest recycling points where to correctly dispose of materials like cans, glass, plastic, medical waste, broken electronics and find service providers.
Read more about RNF by visiting the website and their Facebook page to be updated about their initiatives, among which the Namibia National World Clean Up Day is taking place on September 21.
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Artistic methods bring miners’ perspectives to the fore: The Gold Matters project
The Gold Matters project explores whether a transformative approach towards sustainability can arise in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) on which an estimated 16 million people in low and lower-middle income countries are dependent as a livelihood.The project includes collaboration with artists, among which the painter Christophe Sawadogo from Burkina Faso and the photographer Nii Obodai from Ghana. Christophe’s images were inspired by the daily movement of people, using paper to collect footprints, tyre tracks and other markings, and adding from the goldfield mine dust of many hues, stones and carbon for impression.
These artistic collaborations aim to bring to the fore the perspectives of miners and to reflect on sustainability issues in small-scale gold mining. In fact, ASGM is associated with negative environmental, social, labour and health impacts, which generate critical barriers to sustainability. The research uses a multi-actor and trans-regional approach, with comparative analysis across sites in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Follow the project through the website and Twitter
The project is supported by the New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe (NORFACE), a collaborative partnership of national research funding agencies from 20 European countries dedicated to leading and developing opportunities for scientists in the area of social and behavioural sciences, and by the Belmont forum, a partnership of funding organizations, international science councils and regional consortia committed to the advancement of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science.
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The next generation of ‘Science for the People’
Science for the People is a science-activist organization dedicated to building a radical political movement in science and society. Members consist of STEM scientists, workers, educators, students and activists committed to the democratic practice of science for the benefit of humanity and the planet. Science for the People engages in research and science communications for the betterment of society, ecological improvement and environmental protection to serve human needs.The organisation had its roots in the anti-war culture of the United States in the late 1960s and lasted until the end of 1980s. In 2014, it was revived by the collaboration between the old and the new generation of members and reopened the discussion around topics of health care, climate change, social justice and science education, among others. Nowadays, there are a number of working groups dealing with topics such as biology and society, climate change, reproductive justice, science education and social responsibility, technology and others and the organisation has many local chapters with representatives, mainly from the US.
As a result of recent interest, the Science for the People Magazine, previously published from 1969 to 1989, has been relaunched online in May 2019 thanks to a fundraising campaign. View the magazine.
Read more about Science for the People mission and activities on the website
Watch the mini documentary on YouTube, to be premiered Saturday July 28, 6:30 p.m. at Caveat, 21A Clinton Street, Manhattan, New York City.
Source: Science for the People and Wikipedia