New Perspectives in Science Education

Improving science education has been a relevant objective of European countries since the end of the 1990s, and many projects and programmes have been created since then. Their main task has been to promote the study of science and to support a positive image of science education improving public knowledge on it and fostering interest in science careers. In this direction, many measures have been adopted trying to improve science education such as: implementing curriculum reforms, creating partnerships between schools and companies, scientists and research centres and initializing projects focusing on continuing professional development. This paper presents Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnership for School Education project “Scientific literacy at the school: improving strategies and building new practices of science teaching in early years education - SciLit” (2016 -1- ES01- KA201- 025282), whose main aim is to develop innovative tools to facilitate the teaching of science in early years education. The project is based on the consideration that science teaching is a basis for the overall development of the child as well as a fundamental element in the scientific literacy therefore training and innovative materials to support teachers to deliver high quality science education are needed. The paper gives insights into the project’s objectives, methodology as well as introduces its activities and main outputs. The SciLit project through its outputs presents the framework for pre-primary and primary science education in European Union, and in particular in Italy, Spain, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia with a focus on legal framework, science education curricula structure, initial and continual teacher training on science education, and its implications. It also provides explanations of how to introduce science in the classroom from early years of education. Additionally, the paper presents project’s developed classroom materials that propose an educational itinerary to facilitate the understanding of scientific concepts and to support training of teachers and educators in science from a multidisciplinary point of view. Finally, SciLit project consolidated a network of cooperation in order to raise awareness on the relevance of introducing science from early stages of education and consequently changing models in education.

Keywords: Science education, early-years education, teachers engagement, European project;

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