PLATON

The course is organized in the context of the project Space Awareness project. Its main objective is to introduce to teachers learning methods that have demonstrably engaged young children in science in the long term and inspire them towards space related career paths. More specifically the objectives of the summer school are:

• Facilitate teachers in introducing to their students space related careers and facilitate them developing the key skills involved through playful and engaging activities tailored to the school curricula.
• Acquaint participants with activities on contemporary space related subjects and showcase how they can be used in the science classroom.
• Introduce STEM teachers  to inquiry teaching and learning approaches that meet the needs of different types of students and give them the opportunity to use such techniques.
• Provide participants with training on teaching strategies that will allow them to manage diverse classrooms and promote gender balance.
• Present to teachers ICT tools apt for use in the science classroom.

The course will also strengthen its social cohesive and pan-European dimension by inviting participants to be part of a community of practice that will allow them to exchange and share ideas, experiences, concerns and educational resources with fellow teachers across Europe and introduce them to on-line learning repositories, portals and educational metadata.
The repertoire of resources and tools and activities that will be presented in combination with the hands-on and minds-on activities will facilitate the participants in learning how to deploy and integrate them in their school environment and everyday science teaching practice and also how to contribute their own work into educational repositories and share it within a European community of practice. 

The Space Awareness Summer School 2016 is part of the Inspiring Science Education Academy.

The aim of the Inspiring Science Education Summer Academy is to support the modernisation of science education and training, including in curricula, assessment of learning outcomes and the professional development of teachers and trainers, as well as to the wide adoption of the recommendations of the Rocard Report "A new Pedagogy for the Future of Europe" (Rocard et al., 2007), that sets the basics for the introduction of the Inquiry Based approach in the science curricula of the Member States.