Search results for "outreach"

Astronomical Activities with Disabled People

2010

With this contribution we would like to share our experiences in organizing astronomical activities addressed to people with disabilities. The goal is twofold: we would like to invite all those with similar experiences to contribute to the compilation of a document to guide other astronomers who might be interested in carrying out these kind of activities aimed at groups of people with special needs. We also want to persuade public outreach officers that working with disabled people is not as difficult as it may seem at first, as long as they are provided with adequate educational material and guidelines about how to do it. The final goal is to build a repository that can be used by educato…

The paleontological and archaeological museum “Ildefonso Recio Valverde” (Totanés, Toledo). A new area for understanding our past

2019

The Palaeontological and Archaeological Museum “Ildefonso Recio Valverde” was recently opened in Totanes (Toledo). The material included in this museum mostly belonged to the personal collection of I. Recio, who donated it to this municipality to contribute to the dissemination of Palaeontology and Archaeology. Its creation, and the even more recent discovery of a Neolithic cromlech in its vicinity, provides this small village with great potential to become a centre for heritage tourism and scientific outreach. This paper presents the process of arranging the museum and cataloguing the paleontological collection, as well as outlining its value as a local museum.

Five Years of Game Programming Outreach : Understanding Student Differences

2014

This paper presents lessons learned from five years of teaching a five-day game design and programming outreach course. The course was offered in summer time and targeted at middle and high school students. In total, 462 youngsters have taken part in 21 course instances. We describe our course concept, and discuss our successes and challenges. In particular, we focus on understanding our student populations by presenting descriptives and statistics of the events, and performing a statistical cluster analysis based on pre- and post-surveys. The cluster analysis was complemented with an analysis of the qualitative data, also originating from the surveys. Taken together, students could be clas…

Life two years after a game programming course: longitudinal viewpoints on K-12 outreach

2012

In our faculty we have run week-long K-12 game programming courses now for three summers. In this paper we investigate what programming-related activities students do after they take a course, and what factors in the students' background relate to post-course programming. We also investigate a possible change in the students' interest towards higher education science studies. We find that most students continue programming after the course and that their interest towards science studies keeps increasing. In student background we observed some indicative trends, but did not find reliable explaining factors related to post-course programming or increased interest towards science studies.

3D-Printable Model of a Particle Trap: Development and Use in the Physics Classroom

2019

Quadrupole ion traps are modern and versatile research tools used in mass spectrometers, in atomic frequency and time standards, in trapped ion quantum computing research, and for trapping anti-hydrogen ions at CERN. Despite their educational potential, quadrupole ion traps are seldom introduced into the physics classroom not least because commercial quadrupole ion traps appropriate for classroom use are expensive and difficult to set up. We present an open hardware 3D-printable quadrupole ion trap suitable for the classroom, which is capable of trapping lycopodium spores. We also provide student worksheets developed in an iterative design process, which can guide students while discovering…

Valencian Network of Educational Innovation in Optics

2014

[EN] The Valencian Network of Educational Innovation in Optics consists of three groups from the Universitat de València, Universitat Jaume I, and Universitat Politècnica de València. The participants in the network present an extensive background on performing actions to improve teaching practice. They have been involved for years in scientific outreach activities and in a number of educational innovation projects, which have developed innovative teaching materials. With the aim of sharing their experience and enhance their performance, the three groups have decided to join forces to become a Network of Educational Innovation whose main projects are described in this communication.

Ciència, científics i literatura. El paper de la literatura en la divulgació de la ciència i la tecnologia

2014

La presència de la ciència i la tecnologia a través de les seues idees innovadores i avanços tecnològics s'ha vist reflectida en nombroses obres ben conegudes i representatitives de la literatura universal. Aquest fet es dóna, sobretot, a partir del segle XIX quan comença l'impacte social més notori de l'activitat científica en la societat. Amb aquest article volem mostrar com el debat entre les ciències i les humanitats, qüestionat ja per autors com Snow, és estèril, ja que la influència mútua d'aquestes dues formes de pensament mostra que són igualment humanes i s'han influït constantment, més encara com ens acostem a l'actualitat. En l'article s'esmenten innombrables exemples de novel·le…

Capacity building in clinical and molecular characterization of rare neurodegenerative diseases through the development of a local register and impro…

2020

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) are very polymorphic and affect people of all ages. They concern both rare diseases and more common diseases. Improving knowledge of NDs in the French Caribbean region requires special attention because of the unique environmental and genetic background of its populations. In Martinique, there is a huge need for scientific research on rare NDs. While epidemiological and clinical research has increased over the past decade in the French West Indies, there is still little or no data on the genetics of NDs in these regions. The advent of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) on a global scale has the potential to make a difference in this field, provided that techno…

Breaking down barriers : teaching to learn and learning to teach in a music conservatory's outreach program

2009

On the impact of computer science outreach events on K-12 students

2016

Many countries have begun to adopt computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) into national curricula of compulsory education and upper secondary education. It is argued that learning rigorous CS concepts not only secures a workforce for the future’s digital industries but also benefits all students by improving their problem-solving and logical reasoning skills. However, the popularity of CS as a university major declined in the beginning of the 21st century, resulting in the development of a range of student outreach activities to engage young students in the study of computing. This thesis originated from this need to attract and retain students in the CS field. The focus of thi…