Hosted by the Italian NGO Psiquadro, the European consortium worked under the overarching goal of identifying key aspects for the development of the Our Space Toolkit. Perugia´s Chamber of Commerce, located in the heart of the Umbria Region capital, was the location for the 2,5 days of OurSpace retreat, which gathered together 16 experts from 8 partner organisations.
This new set of resources, OurSpace toolkit, will enable teachers to bring space-related topics into their classrooms, and into their communities. The team considered questions like: How can we better tune the toolkit activities with the needs of our students? How can we make teacher´s engagement a meaningful and sustainable one? The results will inform the activities offered by the project.
The working sessions were boosted by keynote speakers, whose speeches were directly related to the project’s main concerns: new and engaging ways of teaching and learning STEM, and the applications of space-related careers to the development of society as whole.
Bridget Holligan, Director of Education and Engagement at ScienceOxford – shared insights of Thinking, Talking, Doing Science (TDTS), a successful training programme in the UK. Silvia Casu INAF (National Institute of Astrophysics- Cagliari Observatory) talked about making activities inclusive and Roberto Battiston, Astro-Particle Physicist, shared challenges about science economy and space science careers.
A group of Italian teachers joined the project team, giving them a unique view about their daily needs in terms of pedagogical support and how can our toolkit be a real contribution to expanding students´ awareness about space science and industry. The retreat finished with an improved action plan for bringing together these activities and a detailed roadmap on how to organise and develop the interventions with schools and local stakeholders.
