Xperimania Science Ambassadors to visit schools in Romania, Slovenia, Portugal and the UK
From February to April the Xperimania Science Ambassadors will be on the road to demonstrate the fun side of science to pupils around Europe. Due to the high number of interested schools in the Science Ambassadors’ call run in autumn 2009, the jury decided to reward three extra schools with the ambassadors’ visit.
Altogether 432 schools from 24 countries applied for the chemistry and physics workshops organised by the Xperimania ambassadors. An international jury, representing the chemical industry and the European ministries of education, selected the winners primarily according to the motivation of the students at an age when they are about to decide on subjects to study for their future careers.
Other important criteria were the geographic balance of the selected schools, their interest in the proposed workshop topics, and the motivation of the teachers. The jury was also very positively influenced by the fact that there were applications from several schools in the same city, making it possible to maximise the impact of the ambassadors’ visit in one location.
Due to the huge success of the call and the high level of motivation that the schools showed, the jury decided to increase the number of winning schools from three to six, and to visit four countries instead of the original three. The winning schools are:
- Romania: Traian Vuia in Maramures
- Portugal: E.B. 2,3 de Alcanede in Alcanede
- Slovenia: Osnovna šola heroja Janeza Hribarja in Stari trg pri Ložu
- United Kingdom: Bartley Green School, St Francis Primary School and Highters Heath Community School in Birmingham
In addition, IES J. Ibáñez Martín in Lorca (Spain) was selected as a pilot school in order to assess the extra value of training students already interested in Science to act as replicators.
In the schools, the Xperimania ambassadors will conduct several one-hour workshops with inspiring and interactive chemistry and physics experiments on properties of materials, especially petrochemicals, which let the students’ get their hands – literally – on science.
After each workshop a report of the ambassadors’ visit will be published on the Xperimania website www.xperimania.net.
For further information, please contact: Ann Whent, Appe email: awh@cefic.be Tel. (+32) 02 676 73 60
Agueda Gras-Velazquez, European Schoolnet email: agueda.gras@eun.org Tel. (+32) 02 790 75 83
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