Press release: Brussels, 16 November 2015
For the past six years, the Scientix project has helped thousands of teachers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects in schools across Europe to experiment in their classroom, adopt innovative teaching and learning methods, and inspire future generations of scientists.
These achievements are celebrated at the upcoming EMINENT event in Barcelona, on 19 and 20 November 2015, where stakeholders in STEM education in Europe meet to discuss common challenges in the field and develop policies for the future.
Scientix supports the development and implementation of innovative teaching methods in STEM education by sharing best practices and knowledge. It has systematically collected information about 400 public funded projects in STEM education and over 4,700 resources for schools and researchers. Scientix also organises regular online professional development opportunities (e.g webinars, Moodle courses and other online training activities), face-to-face networking events and workshops, as well as national conferences. Two Scientix international conferences took place in Brussels and were among the major networking events in STEM education in Europe. Today, six thousand educators are now registered as part of its online community at www.scientix.eu.
EMINENT, Experts Meeting in Education Networking, is an annual event organised by European Schoolnet, a network of Ministries of Education across Europe. This year's event will bring together 260 experts in education, representatives of national ministries and other stakeholders, including teachers, to discuss the importance of STEM in education and life in Europe.
"Education systems are key to reach the European Union's goals for research, development and innovation by 2020. Innovative approaches to teaching and learning must be introduced to make STEM careers and subjects more attractive to young people. One of those approaches is to offer teachers access to more informal and formal training opportunities to support their continuing professional development (CPD). This will be the setting of this year's event, to identify suitable policies to tackle common issues and problems in STEM education," says Marc Durando, Executive Director of European Schoolnet.
"Scientix has been a great place to find alternative ways to present challenging topics and reinforce understanding of difficult concepts. Students want to see where they can be applied in real life – they need to understand the usefulness of what they are learning. Scientix’s tools have helped me with a huge range of activities, and lesson worksheets that emphasise the real-world applications of STEM principles," says Francesco Mazzucco, a senior secondary school teacher at the Liceo Classico Vitruvio Pollione in Formia, Italy.