Teaching Science in Today's Society: the Case of Particle Physics For

Teaching Science in Today's Society: the Case of Particle Physics For

universe Article Teaching Science in Today’s Society: The Case of Particle Physics for Primary Schools † Cristina Lazzeroni 1, Sandra Malvezzi 2 and Andrea Quadri 3,4,* 1 School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK; [email protected] 2 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sez. di Milano Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 3, I-20126 Milano, Italy; [email protected] 3 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sez. di Milano, Via Celoria 16, I-20133 Milano, Italy 4 Ministero dell’istruzione—IC E.Fermi, Carvico, Via Cavour 9, I-24030 Carvico, Italy * Correspondence: [email protected] † This paper is an extended version from the proceeding paper: Cristina Lazzeroni. Particle Physics for Primary Schools—Enthusing Children to Modern Science. In Proceedings of the 1st Electronic Conference on Universe: online, 22–28 February 2021. Abstract: The rapid changes in science and technology witnessed in recent decades have significantly contributed to the arousal of the awareness by decision-makers and the public as a whole of the need to strengthen the connection between outreach activities of universities and research institutes and the activities of educational institutions, with a central role played by schools. While the relevance of the problem is nowadays unquestioned, no unique and fully satisfactory solution has been identified. In the present paper we would like to contribute to the discussion on the subject by reporting on Citation: Lazzeroni, C.; Malvezzi, S.; an ongoing project aimed to teach Particle Physics in primary schools. We will start from the past Quadri, A. Teaching Science in and currently planned activities in this project in order to establish a broader framework to describe Today’s Society: The Case of Particle the conditions for the fruitful interplay between researchers and teachers. We will also emphasize Physics for Primary Schools. Universe some aspects related to the dissemination of outreach materials by research institutions, in order to 2021, 7, 169. https://doi.org/ promote the access and distribution of scientific information in a way suited to the different age of 10.3390/universe7060169 the target students. Academic Editor: Lorenzo Iorio, James A. Isenberg, Gerald B. Cleaver, Keywords: science teaching; particle physics; Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) Lijing Shao, Gonzalo J. Olmo and disciplines Giacomo Tommei Received: 1 May 2021 Accepted: 27 May 2021 1. Introduction Published: 30 May 2021 Science and technology play a prominent role in our society. The EU Council recom- mendation on key competencies for life-long learning of 22 May 2018 makes reference to Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral the need of motivating more young people to engage in science related careers [1] (recital with regard to jurisdictional claims in n.12). A particular useful strategy in pursuing this goal is to link science education more published maps and institutional affil- closely with the arts and other subjects, using inquiry-based pedagogy and engaging with iations. a wide range of societal actors and industries [1] (recital n.16). In this perspective, it has been suggested that teachers’ work should be more about teaching the young generation to be aware and able to access the “multiple literacy contexts in which they live, learn and work” [2]. In particular, one should exploit the social and Copyright: c 2021 by the authors. cultural nature of disciplinary inquiry, with emphasis on the methodology, the values Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. and the conventions of today’s research in science and technology as well as on the latest This article is an open access article updated results and the commonly accepted theories confirmed by experiments. distributed under the terms and This approach seems particularly promising. In order to be applied in practice, several conditions of the Creative Commons additional steps are however required. First of all, the relevant scientific and technological Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// content must be identified and explained in a consistent, rigorous and yet accessible way. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ We stress the fact that we do not only refer to the specific content in a given subject in 4.0/). Universe 2021, 7, 169. https://doi.org/10.3390/universe7060169 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/universe Universe 2021, 7, 169 2 of 10 science and technology but also to the methods and the procedures by which scientists have obtained the relevant results. This is a particularly critical task in today’s society. In fact, it is widely accepted that the World Wide Web (WWW) has allowed the widest access to information in the history of humanity. Yet, it is an equally widespread opinion that this does not mean by itself the ability of a critical and scientifically correct use of that information. When the WWW audience enlarged from the community of scientists that first designed the WWW at CERN in the 1990s to potentially the whole of mankind, the issue of equipping digital citizens with critical thinking skills to identify scientifically unreliable information has become urgent. While the education to digital citizenship must be carried out by schools and other educational institutions, we believe that research agencies as well as universities must be the leading players in the design, dissemination, review and update of scientifically validated materials and digital educational resources. On the other hand, it is also a well-established fact that the way in which such content is presented to students, as well as its educational impact, must take into account the age and the psychic and emotional evolution of the target audience. For instance, results in linguistics neuroscience have confirmed previous observations by pedagogists on the existence of a “sensitive period” [3], i.e., a period critical for language acquisition [4]. This period lasts from about one and a half years to two years until puberty. Only in this period perfect bilingualism can be developed or aphasia caused by brain trauma can be completely recovered. If the second language is learned after puberty, the speaker will never be as proficient in it as in the mother tongue [4]. Let us now consider a specific problem: how one could teach the classification and the properties of the fundamental constituents of matter, i.e., Particle Physics, in primary schools. This is a particularly interesting problem for many reasons. First of all it is an excellent example of a subject where fundamentally new results have been obtained in the last fifty years, substantially improving our understanding of Nature. Moreover, it allows us to assess in a non-trivial way the motivational and value-related aspects of science on a specific age target. Indeed, in recent years substantial evidence has been gathered about the pivotal role of science teaching in primary schools in order to foster key competencies in science-related subjects and in order to improve the perception of attractiveness of science and science-related jobs [5]. Another important goal is to contribute to the decrease of the gender bias in Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM)-jobs. Along these lines an innovative program was started in 2015 at the University of Birmingham by C. Lazzeroni and M. Pavlidou [6–9], aiming at introducing in primary schools Particle Physics concepts, that open up fundamental issues such as the basic constituents of matter and the origin of our Universe, through the direct engagement in schools of researchers active in the field (as part of their outreach duties) as well as fostering an ongoing teacher development in these subjects. The Particle Physics for Primary Schools (PPPS) program has been particularly successful: it has been successfully used as part of the Playing with Protons program at CERN for UK and Greek teachers and has been then translated into the Greek language. Since 2017 the program has been implemented in six primary schools in Northern Italy at the Istituto Comprensivo (IC) “Enrico Fermi” in Carvico. The Italian version of the project has two main goals: 1. To support the education of teachers on Particle Physics through a direct connection with researchers active in the field; 2. To implement a closer link between research end teaching by exploiting the idea that teaching by teachers mentored by scientists can be, in the medium-long term, highly effective. The joint collaboration between scientists and teachers can benefit both parties in several ways: the impact of the teaching activities can be greatly enhanced by taking into account the especially positive attitude towards learning of young pupils that is well-known to teachers (and maybe less known to researchers in Particle Physics or other science and technology fields); the correctness and rigor of Universe 2021, 7, 169 3 of 10 the material presented is guaranteed through the constant supervision promoted by professional researchers participating in the project. We believe that the work carried out in the UK and in Italy allows one to draw some conclusions on several conditions that must be met in order to make science teaching effective and fruitful in our society. In some sense, it gives us a hint on some principles taken from experience that could be useful in a variety of contexts. More specifically, collaboration between scientists and teachers is crucial. Such a collaboration must be supported by the organization of research institutions and of schools in a coherent, well- defined institutional framework. Teaching materials produced and validated by research institutions and universities for a given age target are also crucial in order to facilitate the direct implementation of science teaching programs in the classrooms. Their distribution and updates could significantly benefit from the principles of open source and open access. The aim of this paper is not to give a detailed description neither of the Standard Model of Particle Physics nor of the resources used in the workshop delivered in schools.

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