Sensing Science / Coding H2O

Introduction to BBC micro:bit

You can find detailed descriptions of the webinars under "Past webinars" below.

Exploring using Explorify

Explorify is a free digital resource that provides activities to help primary school teachers do more and better science. The webinar showed how to use the resources as starter activities, assessment tools and also to support lesson planning. The important point about Explorify is that there is no language barrier to some of the resources so they can be used in any school, in any country.

Dr. Thomas Barton: Primary Science Project Manager at the Wellcome Trust. I work with the Explorify digital team and external partners to support improvements in science teaching & learning in UK primary schools. I have previously worked as a primary school teacher and science leader in London schools.

Kulvinder Johal is the Regional Mentor for London and the SE working for the Primary Science Teaching  Trust. She is also a member of the ASE primary committee and is part of the Science on Stage steering committee UK. She has presented at SonS 2015 London and has been supporting the UK delegations in Debrecen 2017 and Cascais 2019. She has over 25 years experience as a primary teacher, school leader in a large multicultural school in London.

Sensing Science / Coding H2O

You can find a recording of this webinar on our Youtube channel here

In this webinar for secondary teachers, the speakers presented “Coding H₂O”and explained how it could be adapted by teachers with very little knowledge about coding. Using this innovative approach students can use coding to design and carry out scientific experiments in order to learn different topics in science using an inquiry-based learning methodology. After this webinar, teachers should feel confident using coding in their classes to teach science with almost no prior knowledge or experience. They also gained a global perspective about the microcontrollers available and the different programming languages their students could use.

The teaching unit is taken from the brochure "Coding in STEM Education" from the topic ‘Environment 4.0’. The project is proudly supported by SAP.

Elena Poncela has been teaching science, physics and chemistry in Spain and in the USA for more than 25 years. She is a Raspberry Pi certified educator and loves coding sensors to embed programming in her science classes.

Beatriz Padín is a physics teacher in secondary school. She really enjoys looking for innovative and motivating ways of teaching, especially with the aid of new technologies and programming. She hopes to make science classes more meaningful and engaging for students. 

What happens next? A strategy to engage students

The “What Happens Next?” webinars, one for primary and one for secondary education, were a series of short “demonstration” experiments, several of which have discrepant outcomes - that is outcomes that you may not initially expect. The “audience” (whether consisting of teachers or pupils) is asked to decide on the outcome of the experiment. Working in groups this approach encourages discussion, enabling all to voice their opinion. It often identifies misunderstandings and enables participants to clarify ideas, and can be used diagnostically for both pupils and teachers. The ideas are useful for parents evenings, open days, assemblies and can be fun. Many of the suggested experiments are those that can be easily repeated, (often at home). Certainly younger students are encouraged to do just that. Some of the ideas lend themselves particularly to further investigation and there will be examples of how this has been followed through.

David Featonby is a board member of Science on Stage and an ex secondary teacher who since retirement has had a wide experience presenting to both secondary and primary students and teachers throughout Europe. He believes that science can be very relevant and accessible to all levels and ages of students. David worked for over 35 years in a large English comprehensive school teaching all abilities. On his retirement he worked for the Institute of Physics as a Network Coordinator in the North East and latterly has participated in several Science on Stage Festivals.

Lilu’s House: Language Skills through Experiments

Why does the mirror fog up when I take a shower? Why do I see my reflection upside-down in a spoon? And why does bread dough not rise without yeast? For children, everyday life is full of questions.

In this webinar, participants learned about fun and easy experiments that primary school children can do to explore ‘inexplicable’ observations. By reflecting on these verbally, the children can enhance their language skills. The experiments are taken from the brochure “Lilu’s House” and presented by its authors. Learn more about the brochure here: www.science-on-stage.eu/lilus-house

Majken Grünfeld comes from Denmark where she teaches science and technology, physics, chemistry and math at both primary and secondary level. Whether she is teaching children in 1st grade or young adults in 10th grade you will often hear her say: “Try it out!” to her students. Majken enjoys making teaching materials. Besides “Lilu’s House”, she has produced teaching material for an online game with the purpose of creating awareness on disease spreading developed by Aalborg University. Majken has been involved with Science on Stage since 2015 where she participated in the Science on Stage festival in London as a delegate. Shortly after the festival in 2017 in Debrecen - where Majken also participated as a delegate - she became the main NSC for Science on Stage Denmark. At the festival in 2019 in Cascais, she was furthermore part of the international jury team.  

Jitka Houfková, originally mathematics and physics teacher, earned her PhD for work focused on hypertext and multimedia support of physics education. She works at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University in Prague where she is involved in pre-service physics teacher training. She concentrates on performing physics experiments and showing physics to young children. Amongst other things Jitka Houfková collaborates with Science Cup Competition that is focusing on interesting children in natural sciences, develops special teaching materials for sciences in preschool and primary school and participates in PISA and TIMSS assessments. She joined the Science on Stage network at the first Physics on Stage in 2000 and co-coordinates the activities in Czech Republic since 2010. Since 2015 she has been on the executive board of Science on Stage Europe and was one of the co-authors of "Lilu's House". 

Kirsi Rehunen is a kindergarten and primary teacher from Finland. During her 30 years of teaching she has been focusing on phenomenon-based learning, science education, and nature projects. She has been working with the LUMA Centre Finland since 2013 and has won several LUMA StarT awards. Since 2015 Kirsi has been involved with Science on Stage Europe by participating in festivals and by developing the teaching material “Lilu’s house – Language Skills through Experiments”. In 2019 she has taught children and teachers in China. Kirsi works now at Taipalsaari Kirkonkylä school in Finland with pupils of age six. 

Why does the mirror fog up when I take a shower? Why do I see my reflection upside-down in a spoon? And why does bread dough not rise without yeast? For children, everyday life is full of questions.

Introduction to BBC micro:bit

You can find a recording of this webinar on our Youtube channel here

In this webinar for primary and secondary teachers, teachers gained some basic knowledge of the BBC micro:bit, a microcomputer which has become popular recently. It aims to inspire young people to get creative and develop core skills in science, technology and engineering. The integrated sensors distinguish the micro:bit from other robotic tools. This pocket-sized codeable computer has motion detection, a built-in compass and Bluetooth technology. With the micro:bit, which is quite easy to use, classes can be both recreative and instructive. Even those who have not been involved in coding yet, can easily compute some elementary operations with Microsoft Makecode. Some primary subjects such as the origin of micro:bit, key features of it, the use of LEDs, buttons and sensors are going to be explained on this webinar. In addition, some spesific hands-on activities are going to be mentioned. 

Selcuk Yusuf Arslan is a computer science teacher at Ataturk Vocational and Technical High School in Ankara, Turkey. Due to his interest in STEM and SDGs, he has been carrying out outstanding projects on these issues such as promoting girls’ interested in coding and IT. In 2017, he presented his work at the European Science on Stage festival in Debrecen and he and his students were one of the finalists of the European STEM League. Selcuk received many awards for his work, among others the Global Teacher Award by AKS Education in 2018. Last year he participated in the CERN International High School Teacher Programme.

Watch this if you can! How to use video production in remote STEM classes

Due to COVID-19, often lab experiences had to be canceled and many teachers are in need of ideas for lab replacements. In this webinar the presenters showed activities and, most of all, how to use technology to perform STEM labs at home and record them using the two techniques easily available on smartphone cameras and action cams: slow motion and time-lapse. With slow motion, you can expand time to be able to see details that otherwise would remain unseen. With time-lapse on the other hand, you compress big amounts of time. This can allow you to monitor a long-lasting process through a long time period, squeezing time, so that the video recording lasts only seconds or minutes. This way otherwise invisible patterns can become recognizable. Students can design, prepare and perform their own labs and document them with smartphones or action cams using these techniques, even at home which is especially important in case of distance learning. The webinar is suitable for both secondary and primary teachers. Prior knowledge on video recording is useful, but anything can be learned in the field while trying the first attempts to record videos.

Paolo Berni, born in 1963 in Carpi (MO) Italy, has been making short films and videos since high school. Now he is a freelance director who helps agencies, corporate communication and TV in realizing live shows and videos. He has also written and directed a number of short fictional and documentary videos as an independent producer, including educational videos. You can reach Paolo at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Marco Nicolini teaches tmath and physics at the Liceo Scientifico Statale “A.Tassoni”, Modena, Italy, an upper secondary grammar school, and lectures in the Planetario di Modena. He has been previously teaching in the European School Bruxelles 2. Marco is a co-author of several Science on Stage teaching materials such as “Football in Science Teaching” and “Coding in STEM Education. Apart from being Science on Stage Ambassador and Scientix Ambassador, he likes making videos on experiments, mainly with special techniques.