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The PCB trains secondary school students to extend research to elementary schools

By 4 de November de 2014No Comments
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Photo: © Parc Científic de Barcelona.
 04.11.2014

The PCB trains secondary school students to extend research to elementary schools

Under the project "Tandem Schools" –promoted and funded by the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera, in collaboration with the Department of Education of the Generalitat de Catalunya- the Parc Cientific de Barcelona (PCB) has launched a training program addressed to secondary school students aimed at enabling them to actively participate in the development of various activities of the " Research in Primary Schools" series, the objective of which is to bring science closer to all youngsters. The training sessions were held last October and today, November 4. Fifty students participated in the first workshop held at the Apelles Mestres secondary school in the city of Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona.


The initiative, organized by the Area of Public Outreach at the PCB, featured the participation of ten 9th and 10th grade students from the Apelles Mestres Secondary School of the city of Hospitalet de Llobregat, who will be collaborating hand in hand with researchers at IRB Barcelona and PCB to increase scientific literacy and bring current biomedical research closer to a further 125 elementary students. The next workshops will be held at the OpenLab at the Parc Cientific de Barcelona on 10th of November for students attending the Ausias March and Pablo Neruda schools and on 28th of November for students attending the Maragall secondary school. This training program is part of the project “Research in Primary Schools” as part of PCB´s “Research in Society” program, which offers more than 80 activities in which about 5,000 people participate annually.

«Research in Primary Schools» is aimed at students attending the third cycle of primary school and offers two alternative proposals ‘Research in Primary Schools in biomedicine” and “Research in Primary Schools in chemistry and physics” embraced into one single format: the theater workshop. Both activities are dynamized by instructors and researchers and have been designed for younger students to be able to conduct experimental work following the scientific method while extending their knowledge in a relaxed manner on basic principles such as cells, genes, atmospheric pressure, or chemical reactions. The workshops will be followed by a guided and interactive tour led by different laboratories at the PCB so that students become familiar with the real day to day routines carried out at a normal research lab and ask researchers questions relating to anything that arises their curiosity and interests.

Tandem Schools: six innovative partnerships geared to promote successful learning

Tandem Schools is an innovative educational project-inspired by the US “Magnet Schools” model- where schools and first-rank institutions work together in order to promote educational success through curricular specialization of the schools on a specific subject (such as music, science, art, audiovisual communication, etc), with the advice, monitoring and funding from la Fundació Catalunya-Pedrera, and the collaboration of the Department of Education. The program, which began in November 2011, has six tandem projects in which six schools (four elementary schools and two secondary schools) and six reference institutions (three in the field of music, two in the field of science and one in the field of art) are taking part.

In the “Apel Secondary School Tandem, Teachers and IrsiCaixa + PCB” science is integrated as a cross-sectional core in the school´s curriculum. The project aims to improve the educational outcomes of secondary education, while promoting a research spirit and other scientific vocations among students and also to train critical citizens in an increasingly knowledge-based society.