E-I-E-I-O

You all might be wondering why the abbreviation above, well on the next few days we reviewed how science kits, simple models and exhibits can make a huge difference to learning scientific principles and making sure that these principles are cemented in the minds of learners ranging from ECD to High School! So in essence it's :

E for Excite

I for Introduce

E for Explore

I for Interact

O for Outcomes

Day 6,7 & 8

On the last days of our visit we experienced first hand use of grant funded teacher training and use of simple educational resources in the classroom for interactive teaching. This for me personally was an extremely important part of our trip, as the KZN ScienCentre has over the last year developed an extensive programme around simple science resource kits as well as teacher training. The most important lessons learnt from this part was the engagement around all partners involved and most importantly I will be further engaging with The Miami Science Museum and  The Fairchild Project over the materials and expertise that they have used for the above ;-)!

As I write this post I have been back in S.A for a a few days now and we are certainly ready to rock and roll! I will be writing new posts each week with details on how I implemented what I  learnt, how The KZN ScienCentre has evaluated their programmes and how we have made use of all our collaborations and partnerships. For all of you reading this blog please feel free to contact me if you require any further info or would like to partner with The KZN ScienCentre. And we must we always remember as the picture below shows all projects can start of a mere caterpillar and within the right environment, food of knowledge and time to review and mature they can all turn into butterflies!

Resources Resources Resources!

Wow, it really has been an awesome 3 days of learning and acquiring new skills and resources!

Day 3

Experienced a day on the beautiful campus of University of Miami (pictured above). Some of the highlights of the day included a short course on the many different social media tools that can be used in the classroom to have a broader impact on all sorts of educators, facilitators and learners. Interestingly enough the University of Miami has introduced twitter, facebook and wikispace in the classroom allowing for students to interact on a real time basis with their classmates and teachers. This type of participation is really a good creative outlet and can be used as tool for monitoring and evaluation. I was really left inspired and have some newfound ideas on how to utilise these methods to increase learner and public participation at The KZN ScienCentre. especially to evalaute our programmes,workshops and exhibits. Another usefull tool that we will definately be making use of will be creating our own comic strips for more interactive learning, for more information on how to create your very own comic strip go to www.pixton.com, These tools will also help us to make follow ups with our visitors and make sure we can assist education in the province once learners have left our doors!

The second part of the day included a very interesting and unusual problem and inquiry based learning workshop, where learners decide "what science they would like to test" - in this case the learners get a set of crickets that they use to test crickets taste preferences for example whether they would like to eat a banana or a granola bar. This type of workshop really makes learners practice their very own scientific theories and really unlocks their scientific potential, once again this workshop will be used initially in our holiday programme as a pilot project to a bigger project in the future.

Day 4 & Day 5

"Give Today...And...Change Tomorrow" - On these days we were fortunate enough to look at two organisations that really represents this message.

At the Miami Zoo we had the opportunity of looking at worksheets developed by Grade R educators that were incorporated into teaching a group of 4 year olds the different animals and the ecosystem - this had  a great impact on me as we have just developed an ECD centre at The KZN ScienCentre -  I will be writing a great deal more about this after we visit the Children's Museum and the ECHOES programme this weekend, so watch this space. 

Now on Day 5 we were taken around the Miami Science Museum and their plans for the future - for some background, the Miami Science Museum has been given a grant of around $250 million to move to a bigger and better location. At the museum we looked at their abilities to acquire funding and sustain their organisation by the very many programmes they run. The Miami Science Museum  works very closely with their Department of Education and The Miami University and with this partnership in mind we were introduced to an exciting programme that ensures a 89% pass rate of high school graduates who thereafter are accepted to local universities via a scholarship and funding model. This programme is really worth replicating especially if we look at the similar socio-economic problems that exist between the disadvantaged populations of both Miami and S.A. Miami has had over the years a large Cuban influx due to the political and economic situation. I will be engaging with a few people on this matter when I get home ;-)!

Hope you have enjoyed my latest post there's certainly more to come if these last few days are anything to go by!