Imagine schools that teach science that links children’s learning to the world outside. Schools that join hands with local businesses, NGOs or city services to make science education more meaningful for their students by showing how science is a real part of their lives. In these open schools, students learn to ask questions about socio-scientific issues that exist around them, create meaning through inquiry, and collectively find ways to engage in their societies as active citizens.
Schools like these have great potential to prepare students for the complexity of the contemporary world, for uncertain futures, for jobs that don’t yet exist, and for their role as democratic citizens who want to contribute to a sustainable future.
In the COSMOS project, we collaborate with primary and secondary schools to make this a reality. Together, we’re studying what is needed to become a school that is more open to its community and how the science curriculum can be a driving force to make this shift a reality.
Learn more about who we are, our project and approach, and reach out if you want to join us!
Throughout Europe, we are piloting our COSMOS approach to science education for open schooling. Teams from primary and secondary schools are designing and getting ready to implement their COSMOS projects. In Antwerp (Belgium), the teachers from the CLW Borgerhout and CLW Merksem visited KdG University College to learn about how socio-scientific inquiry based learning (SSIBL) can help them to connect their science education projects to communities around the school...
On 14-15 June 2022 the 2nd consortium meeting was held in Karlstad, Sweden. Here the participants discussed the COSMOS framework and terminology related to open schooling transformation, and finalized the preparation phase of the first six months of the project. After returning home, phase 2 (initiation and implementation, round 1) will start.
Kick off meeting of the COSMOS project was held online on 18th-19th of January 2022 due to Covid travel restrictions. More than 30 attendees took part in on-line meeting, including entire project consortium and external advisory board. Utrecht University, a project coordinator, provided COSMOS background, goals and project overview.