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Permanent European Resource Centre for Informal Learning – PENCIL

PENCIL (Permanent European Resource Centre for Informal Learning) has combined field programmes and academic research with the aim of identifying the keys of success that transform informal science activities into innovative quality tools for science teaching. 14 science centres/museums created mini-networks involving schools, pupils, teachers associations, research laboratories, educational authorities, education and science communication specialists to run “pilot projects” on new ways to conduct science teaching.

In parallel, an academic “Resource Centre” was created that provided the state of the art in education research, science communication, formal/informal learning and best practices. The resource centre, based on the collaboration of two universities and two Ministries of Education, assessed and monitored the pilot projects in order to generalise the outcomes, and identified the criteria of innovation and quality that should become the standards for setting up future science teaching efforts.

Xplora, a web based European science education portal used the most advanced communication technology to manage the project, set up the exchanges between partners and enabled continuous monitoring and demonstration of the projects toward the science teachers' community.

The resource centre conducted a motivation study amongst the youngsters participating in “PENCIL” to identify the elements that make the change in their attitude towards science thanks to the project. At the end of the process, the hundreds of teachers involved were brought together into a new “Science Teachers Network” that validated the outcomes and the identified criteria.

This network created the core users of Xplora which is the reference for innovative science teaching, including newly created teacher training tools. PENCIL participated to the integration effort with other funded projects of this call through the activity of the NUCLEUS consortium.

PENCIL involved the following pilot projects:

1. The National Marine Aquarium (UK): “Marine issues with climate change”
2. IMSS (Italy): “On-line access to history of science museums objects”
3. Exploradôme (France): “Middle school student’s use of ICT in science learning”
4. Heureka (Finland): “Chemistry for primary schools”
5. Nemo (NL): “The School's Science Centre"
6. Deutsches Museum (Germany): “Mobility issues with climate change”
7. Experimentarium (Denmark): “Xciters”
8. Ciência Viva (Portugal): “Ludo-mathematics”
9. The Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem (Israel): “Health matters”
10. Ellinogermaniki Agogi (Greece): "The virtual observatory"
11. Technopolis (Belgium): "Who did it?"
12. Cita della Scienza: "So… Science! Social Dimension of Science, Diversity and Gender Issues"
13. Cite de l'espace: "Future technologies for science learning"
14. Universeum: "Learning for a sustainable society"