About HSCI: Objectives

Experience is the teacher of all things.

Julius Caesar

With a broad open understanding of the meaning and importance of Science to the development of our societies, each individual and of the humankind, the main goal of the Hands-on Science Network is the development and improvement of science education and scientific literacy by an extended use of investigative hands-on experiments based learning of Science and its applications.


Goals:


  • To describe good practices and transform these into better practices in Teaching and Learning Science and Science Technology Engineering and Maths;
  • To assess discuss develop and test ways or better ways of using hands-on active learning of Science at the school and in non-formal and informal contexts;
  • To develop an instrument/strategy of data collection on students (6 to 18 years old) opinions, experiences, interests, priorities and perceptions, in particular of the relevance of ScienceTo induce an interdisciplinary integrated approaches to Science learning through hands-on experimentation;
  • To discuss and develop theoretical perspectives and practical approaches to science education sensitive to the diversity of backgrounds;
  • To promote discuss and develop Inquiry Based Science Education;
  • To assess discuss develop and test ways or better ways of bridging formal and non-formal and informal science education;
  • To discuss and promote the issue of Science literacy for citizenship and Life-long learning;
  • To contribute to induce and facilitate the access of women to Science;
  • To proactively contribute to a faster development and positive inclusion of science education institutions from under development or undeveloped countries under our main goal of “Science Education for All”;
  • To collect and monitor results and expertise achieved in former and ongoing pedagogic research projects in Europe and abroad in hands-on learning at schools in the various fields of Science;
  • To collect and sum up continuously knowledge, information, materials, ideas, curricula and experiences from past and ongoing educational projects (including Socrates, LLL, FP6, FP7, ERASMUS and ERASMUS+,…) in related fields;
  • To develop an instrument/strategy of data collection on student’s opinions, experiences, interests, priorities and perceptions, in particular of the relevance of Science;
  • To induce the presentation of school cooperation projects, and others (at national and multinational level) involving members of the network and others. Those projects are expect to contribute to the dissemination of HSCI and the achievement of several other of our most important goals;
  • To promote exchange visits of schoolteachers and project co-ordinators between institutions in different countries;
  • To induce the discussion and free open exchange of ideas and experiences among the different participants on the network;
  • To invite the community to be involved in our discussions;
  • To create an open web based network, a privileged forum for sharing ideas and diffusion of the results of our work;
  • To create internet pages and Internet-based teleconferences and courses in different languages;
  • To create an web-based "Hands-on Learning of Sciences” forum or platform to be used by and open to all the school teachers educators parents and headmasters and stakeholders in education to help the shaping up of local national EU and international Science Education and STEM policies;
  • To promote exchange visits of educators schoolteachers headmasters and stakeholders between institutions in different countries;
  • To organize international conferences and thematic workshops on this subject;
  • To promote and deliver training courses for school teachers and educators in different languages and countries;
  • To establish guides manuals and guidelines, in different languages, on new specific hands-on experiments and pedagogical approaches;
  • To promote Hands-on experimentation in-school and off-school activities;
  • To promote Hands-on-Science contests and fairs at school regional national and international levels;
  • To induce the establishment of Discovering Science Students Clubs within the schools;
  • To contribute to the development and dissemination of new ICT and multimedia tools of free open equitable access to persons with disabilities and minorities;
  • To develop policy recommendations for the curricula improvement;
  • To create a network of teachers interested on this subject to serve as possible future coordinators of educational projects and policy makers or advisors.
News

Pirenópolis (Goiás, Brazil) will host HSCI2024

The 21th annual international conference on Hands-on Science, HSCI2024, will be held in Pirenópolis, Goiás, Brazil, from September 23th to 27th, 2024.

23/04/2024
News

Contest - "À Descoberta da Luz” (2024)

À Descoberta da LUZ (2024)

19/02/2024