CARE: Students were involved in the discussion about the COVID-19 contingency plan and sought to understand the historical, social, and cultural context of epidemics and pandemics. The participants were 180 students, aged between 14 and 17, from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades of high school, with 162 of them having completed the scientific actions, their family members, a teacher, a researcher, and a scientist who shared their concerns about COVID-19. and ideas to reduce transmission supported by the Brazilian Federal Declaration of human and citizen rights and duties. Together with family members, students sought to understand and collected information from bibliographic sources about what would be epidemics and pandemics, their differences, in which societies this phenomenon has already happened, when and why. They also sought to raise causes and effects in the social context in different bibliographic sources, especially the ethical challenges of health, economics, politics, and human rights that have become relevant points in decision-making.

KNOW:  In the classroom, the students shared the previous information gathered for the elaboration of a timeline, with spatial location, elaboration of concepts and debates, among other activities. In relation to knowledge, in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary way, the integration of the disciplines of History and Geography in the analysis of historical and scientific data was developed. In this way, it was possible to understand the epidemics and pandemics in the timeline, as well as the location in the geographic space. Knowing when, where and how the historical facts happened in the world was fundamental.

As skills, the student’s ability to contextualize the historical facts of the past was developed to understand the present, as well as predict new alternatives for the future that could solve other pandemics; another skill was to reflect on responsible decision-making with ethics, empathy and their social and cultural relationships.

Due to these actions in the teaching-learning process, it was observed as attitudes, the valorization of historical records for new approaches to knowledge; the possibilities that new forms of learning, in times of a pandemic, promote in social and ethical relationships and respect for life, as well as the promotion of empathy to overcome the “chaos” caused by epidemics and pandemics, through acquired knowledge.

DO: Students were involved in the following activities:

• Analyze the history of epidemics and pandemics on the timeline with the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Location on maps of countries where some epidemics have emerged;
• Identify differences and similarities between communicable diseases of the past and the pandemic in the 21st century.
• Reading of material available in texts, videos and the book “The history of humanity told by viruses”, written by Stefan Cunha Ujvari;
• Analysis of scientific articles on the social, moral and ethical relationship during pandemic periods;
• Classroom debate on the topic;
• Elaboration of concept maps;
• Documentaries relating to the history of epidemics;
• Posters or panels with elements referring to pandemics;
• Exhibition of the historical study with performance of the main epidemics and pandemics that haunted humanity.

FINDINGS: The open scenario methodology used was project-based collaborative learning. Students brought their own questions, discussed with the scientists and their families. Teachers found the open teaching activity useful for the Contextualization of the Brazilian Federal Declaration with the pandemic highlighting human and citizen rights and duties.

OUTCOMES: The integration of the school curriculum with scientific action enabled new teaching and learning practices whose adaptations served to improve the development of learning and teaching. School curriculum and scientific action complement each other. The New High School made possible several innovations in the school curriculum and in the form of planning that allows teachers to gather by areas of knowledge, which facilitates the planning of actions, the applicability of learning activities, the use of technological resources and curricular interaction based on integrated projects.

The performance presented by the students showed mastery of content on the history of epidemics and pandemics. They embraced the idea and placed themselves as the main character in the story: the different viruses. In this way, the activity instigated and motivated the study as something peaceful and fun.

However, the social distance caused by the pandemic caused many disruptions in the school routine, many changes, which, for example, contacted scientists impossible. The return of face-to-face classes with 50% of the students reduced the time for carrying out the learning activities.

Find out more here: Our report.

CARE: The students successfully presented key questions for the continuation of the scenario.

KNOW: The main objective of the activity was to engage in a participatory research project to develop strategies for the prevention and control of Covid-19 (and other similar infectious diseases) and also to investigate how it is possible to build themselves a sensitive device to detect and study aerosols indoors using an Arduino microprocessor.

DO: The students prepared articles and presentations related to the issue that concerned them. The success of the children was the correct scientific research through articles that they presented to scientists, as well as the completion of the practical part of the scenario that concerned the design of the carbon dioxide sensor.

Findings: This initiative had the consent of parents and opened opportunities for dialogue with the family, students, and teachers.

Outcomes:  In addition, it gave the students the opportunity to escape from sterile theoretical knowledge and to think outside the box of curriculum, which gave them confidence. The children acquired a positive attitude towards research topics. It was very important for them to realize that research starts from everyday concerns.

CARE: A list of questions was sent to the scientist and through his presentation on the Webex Meet platform where answered.

KNOW: The school curriculum was satisfactorily connected with the chosen topic to work with. The greenhouse effect is integrated in their curriculum and was highly connected with the global warming issue. Discussion supported by participatory science has led to greater awareness of global warming and chemical pollution and provoked actions to confront and eventually solve these issues. It also changed the up to that point indifferent attitude of some of the pupils towards scientific methodology and science in general, to clear interest and positive attitude to science.

DO: Since we used an open scenario approach the students either found themselves sources or used some, we offered them. In this context they developed videos, presentations, and a game.

FINDINGS: This initiative had the consent of the parents and opened opportunities for dialogue with the family, pupils and teachers. After the appropriate modifications was integrated in the curriculum making the scientific approach a handy tool for the pupils to understand scientific methodology and to a certain degree apply it.

RESULTS FOR STUDENTS: The students who participated seem now more confident with science, they really enjoy science lessons and they have increased interest in scientific approach and problems.

1)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGXgNx3U9gM

2)https://pantou.sites.sch.gr/connect/%CE%A1%CF%8D%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%B9%20%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85%20%CE%B5%CE%B4%CE%AC%CF%86%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%82.pdf

3)https://pantou.sites.sch.gr/connect/%CE%A1%CF%8D%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%B9%20%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%20%CE%88%CE%B4%CE%B1%CF%86%CE%BF%CF%82-1.pdf

4)https://pantou.sites.sch.gr/connect/%CE%98%CE%AD%CF%81%CE%BC%CE%B1%CE%BD%CF%83%CE%B7%20%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9%20%CF%87%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE%20%CF%81%CF%8D%CF%80%CE%B1%CE%BD%CF%83%CE%B7%20on%20Scratch.html

CARE-KNOW-DO: The scenario follows the structure of Connect: CARE-KNOW-DO and the methodology of participatory science. Students & teachers are participating in all stages, scientists & parents at the stages of “Care” and “Do”, local authorities at “Do” level. The role of the scientist (University of the Aegean, Geography department) was quite critical as at the first level of “Care” he gave initiatives to students in order to start over the process of creating their digital map and at the third level of “Do” where he assisted students on how to present their results, how to make proposals, to discuss in total student’s investigations and to reply to any student’s question about this map creation. The role of teacher is to support students in all stages and motivate them for their personal growth, for further investigating, to encourage them for spatial thinking etc. The role of parents is to communicate, participate, assist, and help students with their questions/actions as they have an active role during this process.

Outcomes: The outcome of this scenario was a variety of student’s spatial questions which are forwarded to local community for further actions and investigation. For example: environmental pollution, accessibility & proximity issues, promoting local places that are not known yet, bad roads/buildings condition, lack of spatial interactions, lack of basic infrastructure etc. The initial limitation of this scenario was the reluctancy of participation as students/their parents haven’t faced something similar before; after the completion of this scenario all students requested to have similar projects for action to other study fields.

Findings: Another benefit of this scenario was that it took place during pandemic as all students were online and they could participate with scientist meetings. Scientist intrigued student’s mind and of course broaden the knowledge for cartography and the use of maps in daily life. The fulfilment of both cartography labs led students to working in teams, to resolving problems, to spatial thinking, to be more tech-savvy and generally to encourage students for improvement. Overall, there was a great cooperation among everyone, and the scenario implementation was in benefit of all the participants.

CARE: Students discussed with their parents in the “Care” phase about the pollution from the electric plants in Greece. In the first part of the “Know” phase students used a mobile application to compute their electric energy consumption where they were helped by their parents.

KNOW:  Students prepared the questions for the scientist in the padlet for the “know” phase.

The renewable energy resources scenario was performed as a continuity in the electric energy chapter of the Physics Greek curriculum. Students showed interest and wanted to learn what are the photovoltaic systems. They had some misunderstandings as concerns the wind generators but after finalization of the project they showed confidence in science.

DO: Students made a poster (“Do” phase) divided by smaller parts in which they show the environmental problems that arise from the conventional electric plants and what are the renewable energy resources. Also, they put in the poster two small photovoltaic panels that are connected through wires with a small fan.

Findings about open schooling: The benefits of these science actions are that students become more active, and they care about problems that exist, but they never think about them. Teacher’s role was to facilitate the process and to help the students. We faced some problems during the implementation as was for example the minor participation of parents.

Results for students: Connect gave us the opportunity to relate the curriculum with a real problem. Our students learned how is possible to be “connected” in the real problems.   Students like to work in teams and to learn about real problems concerning the environment. They also want to take actions and to give solutions, they want to be more active and not pathetic as they do unfortunately during school routine.

CARE: The authentic socio-scientific issue that the students ‘worried about’ was rewilding – protecting nature by introducing species back to their environment. The science professional was a specialist Biologist who interacted with the students to answer and bring up questions, helping in the discussion with 6 students.

KNOW: The activities which are included in the “know 1 rewilding wolves –food webs competition”. First, we studied the “rewilding know 1” together. In this activity the students understood the food web competitions because there were examples about the correct way of thinking. After that the students worked with the files “apply thinking guide – beaver” and “apply thinking guide -lynx”. I assessed them using the rubric and their work was perfect.

DO: Discussion supported by participatory science have led students to do in-depth research, which changed their way of thinking.  Moreover, they learnt a new skill which is to analyse data and write their conclusion.   This initiative had the consent of the parents and opened up opportunities for dialogue with the family, students and teachers with the consensual approach that is not integrated into the curriculum, but which is important to be discussed with support from the teachers.  The only problem was that the students could not collect the data they needed, for the campaign.

Findings about open schooling: Τhe materials were very well structured and detailed so it was implemented very well within the Club. It was easy to implement because there was no curriculum or time pressure and only 4 students participated. The only difficulty was to arrange the meeting with the scientist.

The science action resources met my needs very well. I worked with the structured scenario in a Science Club. Because of the corona virus situation most of the lessons were online and most of the other Club s stopped because the students didn’t find the online Club interesting. In my club I observed the exact opposite situation. Many students from other clubs asked to come in my club because they learnt from their classmates about the open schooling and how interesting it was.

Outcomes for students: The students reported that they acquired a deeper knowledge of environmental factors. Also, they learned to do in-depth research, which changed their way of thinking. Moreover, they learned to develop an argument and rely on scientific data. They learnt a new skill which is to analyse data and write their conclusion. Finally, they reported that they found this way of learning more interesting and fun

CARE:  The authentic scientific issue that the students ‘worried about’ was the return of an endangered animal in our country, the Gypaetus barbatus barbatus. The science professional, Dr.Iasmi Stathi from the Natural History Museum of Crete, is a Biologist, who interacted with the students to answer and bring up questions, helping in the discussion with 15 young people.

KNOW: Students learned to work in a scientific way. They learned to cooperate and to find solutions to problems. They enjoyed learning in a different way. The amount of time was proper and the whole implementation was really interesting for students.

DO: Students created, with the help of the teacher:

1. A map of the population of Gypaetus barbatus barbatus by country, created with the ArcGIS mapping program:

• https://tinyurl.com/55z3enrr

1. A poster that was posted in the bulletin board of the school, in the Facebook page of the school and presented in the exhibition of the European School Projects of Crete, by the RDE of Crete:

• https://tinyurl.com/4df6jpd3
• https://tinyurl.com/6kcf9bxm
• https://tinyurl.com/u5b47ryu
• https://tinyurl.com/p8vs8sv

The framework that was implemented followed the “Care-Know-Do” methodology. Discussion supported by participatory science has led to greater awareness of endangered species and environment. This initiative had the consent of the parents and opened opportunities for dialogue with the family, students, teachers and scientists.

Findings about open schooling:  There were no many limitations with the curriculum, as we managed to embody the practice in our lessons (Biology, food chains, food webs, ecosystems, environmental sciences etc.). The whole project carried out with support from the teacher. The main problem was the lack of time and the pressure to complete the material of curriculum. Furthermore, the limitations of the covid-19 pandemic. Science-action resources absolutely met teacher’s needs.

Results for students: Students learned to work in a scientific way. They learned to cooperate and to find solutions to problems. They enjoyed learning in a different way.

CARE: We started it during the second lockdown, using on-line teaching; however, the biggest part of the CONNECT scenario was applied in the classroom at the end of the second pandemic. The only online part of the Rewilding Greece scenario was the online meeting (1hour) with the invited scientist Dr. Iasmi Stathi from the Natural Museum of History at Heracleio, Crete. Dr. Iasmi had a great interaction with all 19 students participating at the programme and there was a bombardment of questions during that hour. The family was involved in the learning process and their task was to discuss with students and choose the animal for rewilding Greece.

KNOW: Teachers need to have their teaching a priority and that pushes the implementation of CONNECT towards the second half of the teaching year. However, the procedures needed to follow were clear.

DO: the last `DO` part really made a difference for having the students organize their learning for a purpose. However, it took a burden on curriculum programme, and it left us with the aftertaste of having fewer hours for applying the scenario.

We decided to make an action writing a letter of intent to government departments responsible for the environment.

Black Francolin:
https://connect-eu.exus.co.uk/?attachment=805&document_type=document&download_document_file=1&document_file=91

Lynx :
https://connect-eu.exus.co.uk/?attachment=804&document_type=document&download_document_file=1&document_file=90

Findings about open schooling: The science needed to make a scientific argument was easy to incorporate, however the task to fit the programme into school curriculum was cumbersome.

Outcomes for students: It took some effort to keep the students focus on the scientific argument when the initial joy of participation passed. The science was not difficult; however the students found the competition a long process. During the teaching the students never complaint about not being able to complete the task.

CARE: The socio-scientific issue was on how to improve the prevention of Covid.19 at the school. The professionals that gave support were the scientific community from Escoles Sentinella project: science communicators, biologists, epidemiologists, paediatricians among others, helping on the dynamization of the participatory research activities and interacting with students at the final congress to support with the creation of the final recommendations.

KNOW: The activity we did is adapted to the curriculum, for example, in the subject Sciences of the Contemporary World in the 1st year of Baccalaureate, we work on the concept of Science and Pseudoscience and the importance of the working the scientific method. This is also worked on throughout different Obligatory Secondary Education (ESO, from 12- to 16-year-old) science subjects. The transdisciplinary knowledge included the following areas: social, technology, environment, economic, politics and Microbiology.

DO: Students developed Inquiry skills, communication skills, participation skills and transdisciplinary methodologies. The science actions included teamwork, collaborative learning within the class and with other stakeholders and that science useful to solve real-life challenges.

Findings about open schooling: Most of the skills and attitudes addressed in this activity are described at the curriculum, but far from that, as a teacher said, this is a need for the educational community.

Results for students: Discussion supported by participatory science has led to greater awareness of Covid-19 prevention and how the measures to achieve that can be improved by a participatory research process.

Care: The socio-scientific issue that the students ‘care about‘ was pregnancy at puberty and violence. Data during the pandemic shows that violence during outbreak increased particularly against women and underrepresented groups.   

Know:  To help young people be more informed during their puberty with ‘knowledge’’, their online  debate was supported by a dialogue focused on students questions, some references shared by experts on the web and informed-based recommendations developed by the participants.    

Do: 300 students interacted with five science professionals, a specialist in menstrual education, a doctor, a psychologist, a nurse and a social worker. The science action focused on an interactive dialogue with inquiry mapping to bring up questions, references and comments in the online discussion using Google Meet platform. 

Findings: The key benefit of open schooling mentioned by students was that the multi-actor dialogue led to greater awareness of teen pregnancy prevention and the forms of physical and mental violence that affect puberty. This initiative had the consent of the parents and created opportunities for dialogue between students and their family. Although this open schooling activity was not integrated into the curriculum, it was supported by teachers.  

Outcome: Youth found the dialogue with professionals useful and listen to what other student think enabled them to increase their interest about the topic. 

Find out more here: Our report. 

Care: The real problem that engaged students was to protect the biodiversity of a native forest, which was part of the school using a citizen-science platform to share photos, discuss issues and obtain feedback.  

Know: Participants were 15 students who developed their knowledge on biodiversity, identification of plants. 

DO: They formed recommendations for environmental protection. The project on citizen science was integrated with the curriculum, supported by the science teacher and an academic researcher in science. 

Findings: Open schooling supported by Citizen Science is a way of changing the role of school, from a place where students learn contents passively to where they can learn citizenship while learning school subjects. Additionally, open schooling gives them opportunity to interact with scientists.  

Outcomes: The results indicated that students enjoyed the approach and besides learning about plants. According to the teacher’s note students were able to identified environmental problems caused by the community surrounding the school area. They also discussed the need for more public policy to foster more active community participation in solving the issues using science. 

Find out more here: Our report. 

Care:  Participants concerns (what they care about) were to find possibilities for innovating education during the pandemic with new approaches.  

Know: This created opportunity for them to try new approaches such us open schooling, inquiry-based learnign with real socio scientific issues and inquiry mapping for students to discuss issues, references and provide evidence-based recommendations. Participants were 716 educators including 2 representative-students of secondary school and two researchers in Education, Science and Technology. This activity was recorded in YouTube and accessed by more than 7,000 viewers.  

Do: Participants identified key themes and pedagogies to support sustainable development projects in education during the pandemic in the Ceara semi-arid region of Brazil.  

Findings: Various topics were raised such as poverty, limited access to technology, unemployment, lack of water or food and diseases. This initiative was based on a consensus web conference adapted from the open scenario supported by researchers, policymakers, teachers, students and community-members. 

Outcomes: Students who participated in the webinar provided their views and presented their science-actions which were developing learning support for their colleagues during pandemic. They found significant to participate with their opinions about the topics that they find relevant. They also mentioned the importance of knowing what how and why they are learning natural sciences and integrated with social science. Students mentioned that  biology, chemistry, physics, maths and computing are as important as sociology, philosophy, history and geography. Science should be humanised for scientific knowledge not being misused. 

Care: Students were very engaged to investigate a real issue that they were concerned and interested in –  the heart diseases and their causes. The activities were developed with professionals in Medicine and academic students in Biology and Computer Science who prepared the activities using AR resources developed by the OU.  

Know: Approximately 360 Students aged from 11 to 15   used Augmented Reality to increase their knowledge about parts of the heart and its functions. They also explored a healthy and an unhealthy 3D heart.  

Do: After interacting with professionals, students’ science action was to provide (do) a workshop for their parents to show the effects of smoking, drugs, alcohol and unhealthy food to their hearts.  The key benefits for students were engagement, visual understanding and communication skills.  

Findings: This initiative was based on a semi-structured scenario linked to the school national curriculum. This practice was organised by “RA in schools” led by UFSC University who engaged undergraduates in Medicine to work together with undergraduates in Computer science to plan activities with the open educational resources AR developed by the OU and BBC. Teachers found the activities very supportive, attractive and linked with the school curriculum. Parents found that kids were very excited and AR created more opportunity for them to show and discuss the content with them. Undergraduate students enjoyed to interact with school community and realised that they could develop more AR resources in other topics and areas. 

Outcomes: Secondary school students found that AR helped them to increase their understanding about the heart. They also found activities with experts in Medicine and Computer Science useful for them to know about these areas, university and professional careers. They liked a lot the activities and were willing to use this approach again to learn other  topics and also in other disciplines. 

Find out more here:

Report 1/ Report 2/ Report 3/ Report 4

Care: Students cared about “Racism” in Brazil and selected it as their first topic of interest to develop a project and to act against it. 

Know:  in order to know more about it,  scientists (genetics and neuroscience), a social activist and school parents were invited to discuss science, health, history, and sociocultural issues related to Racism such as (human rights, equal opportunities, debunking science myths e.g. black and white peoples’ brain differences and links to intelligence.  

Do: Students produced, published, and disseminated a series of 14 podcasts (available on @webradiofalamadrid – 145 followers.  

Findings: 16 student representatives of the project were able to integrate non-formal learning about Racism as a socio-scientific theme; engaging local community. This process enabled them to realise that curriculum knowledge learned in different disciplines were used to produce the podcasts.  

Outcomes: Students improved their writing, reading, inquiry mapping, and argumentation skills during the process of producing the podcast. Scientific and digital cultures were reinforced by these practices in an integrated manner. 

Care: Rewilding was introduced as a problem to engage students and encourage discussion about how to protect the environment by reintroducing lost animal species back to ecosystems. The activities were developed with a researcher in Science and the schools’ Biology teachers. Participants were 30 students who contributed to discussions about rewilding and planned a campaign to persuade the public of the benefits of rewilding different animal species.  

Know: to decide which animal should be reintroduced, they learned and applied knowledge about ecosystems and interdependence as well as practicing devising questions, visual communication, data analysis and the enquiry skill of weighing up evidence to support a claim. They also used maths skills to prepare graphs and geographic information about habitat.  

Do: Students interacted with family members to vote on the animal to be rewilded and prepared a persuasive poster using argumentation skills based on data and facts. 

Findings: The “weigh evidence to support a claim” was tricky for lower ability pupils to fill in. They had great difficulty distinguishing between a SCIENTIFIC QUESTION and a CLAIM. The activities were useful to identify that some students need more support to analyse data. Their ability to use i-pads to do further independent research on each animal was useful. The information sheets were clear although they had difficulty in analysing the scatter graph. Lack of time was a factor due to curriculum pressures and impending exams. The final presentation task would have taken several lessons to complete, which wasn’t possible, so they adapted the materials and instead made a persuasive poster to display in the Science department.  

Outcome: The teachers reported that they felt the objective to improve students’ interest and confidence in science was met very well and the children were interested in the context.

Ten students, between the ages of thirteen and fourteen, contributed to this open schooling research questionnair. Most students said that learning science will be useful in their daily lives, as well as that they feel confident using science to come up with questions and ideas, in addition, all of them said that they think learning science is fun. The data collected also shows that almost half of the students don’t feel confident with their knowledge in science.

More details of our report: on this link.