Nyhed

AAU Researchers Develop Science Education with Lower Secondary School Teachers

Lagt online: 29.09.2023

The path from engineering and science cutting-edge research to lower secondary school must be shortened – and STEM teaching in lower secondary school must be so interesting that more young people choose a STEM career. This is the idea behind a new project launched by Aalborg University and University College of Northern Denmark.

Nyhed

AAU Researchers Develop Science Education with Lower Secondary School Teachers

Lagt online: 29.09.2023

By David Graff, Dean’s Office, ENGINEERING. Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication

How can STEM academic research be conveyed to teacher students and lower secondary school teachers to qualify science teachers’ competence and maintain and increase students' interest in STEM subjects?

This is the question examined in the project 'Knowledge-based practice in STEM' being conducted by Aalborg University and University College of Northern Denmark (UCN).

There is plenty of academic and web-based material to inspire science teaching in schools, but we are inviting teachers and student teachers into the labs to be in direct contact with science researchers who are developing new knowledge that may not end up in the textbooks for several years.

Steffen Elmose, Associate Professor in the Department of Sustainability and Planning who is heading the project.

The participants in the study are teachers and students from UCN, Klostermarkskolen in Aalborg, and the Master's programme in STEM teaching which are founded by the majority of the country's universities.

All around energy

The starting signal sounded on Monday, 18 September when the participants visited three energy researchers at Aalborg University. One was Mads Pagh Nielsen, Associate Professor who is researching green energy, Power-to-X, etc. He enjoyed lecturing for teachers and teacher students, and they are an obvious target group, he believes:

The green transition is a huge challenge, and with good classroom instruction, teachers can get the students who are currently in lower secondary school to reflect on the processes we need to go through for success. If there’s anyone who needs to get involved in the green transition, it’s lower secondary school students.

Associate Professor and Vice Head of Department Mads Pagh Nielsen, Aalborg University

The other two researchers were Associate Professor Jakob Zink Thellufsen who spoke about the Danish energy system of the future, and Assistant Professor XinXin Xiao who gave a presentation on the development of batteries and fuel cells.

Teaching is the next step

Based on the visit, teachers and teacher students will now begin to develop their own teaching materials that can be used to bring research into classrooms and arouse STEM interest in students. But first, we need to digest all that we heard about, says Joakim, a student teacher at UCN.

Sometimes you think, 'Why don't we just use nuclear power?' And then, on a day like this when you hear about the different ways we study energy and the new discoveries in the area, you understand a little better the challenges and possible solutions that exist.

Joakim, student teacher at UCN.

The next step is to translate the knowledge from the visit into teaching. Lasse, who is an elementary school teacher and is studying on the STEM master's program, does not expect it to be a big challenge:

It has really been an Aha! experience and at the same time there were some things where I thought "Hmm, I have a bit of a hard time understanding that". But I’m already working on the energy systems of the future with my students, so I will use a lot directly from both Jakob and Mads.

Lasse, elementary school teacher and is studying on the STEM master's program

The project 'Knowledge-based practice in STEM' will be evaluated at the end of the year; the parties involved will then decide whether it should be continued and scaled up.

Read more about the project on LabSTEM Nord's LinkedIn page.