In the image you can see in the center to José María López Sancho, Director of the CSIC Program at the School that is a Physicist and Research Professor at the Institute of Fundamental Physics. Is also María José Gómez Díaz, coordinator of the Program and teacher of EGB, specialized in the training of teachers of the first educational levels in the field of science education and Martín Martínez Ripoll, research professor of the CSIC and Chairman of the Scientific-Advisory Committee of the program. I took the photo during the celebration of the Junior First Lego League in Madrid at the headquarters of the Camilo José Cela University on Saturday, February 23, 2013.
The scientists presented their program to the participating children and chatted with them asking for explanations, clarifications and offering suggestions for their projects. Scientists are very aware of the great potential that children have because they are always discovering, innovating and creating things and that ability can also make them scientists in the future. That is why this CSIC program in the school has as its mission design teacher training courses, adapting them to the students' cognitive level.
It is very recent in Spain the introduction in the curricula of Infant and Primary of scientific contents by experimental methods, which has been happening in other western countries since the middle of the last century and that has an impact on results such as PISA. As a result, teacher training at these stages of education has not adapted to this new situation, which is why a core of knowledge is necessary, critical to the challenge that teachers have to face in their professional lives.
He CSIC and the BBVA Foundation at the School It is a project of the Higher Council of Scientific Research that assumes the function of collaborate in the updating of knowledge in science and technology of non-university teaching staff, entrusted to the Agency in its Statutes. That is why the CSIC in the School has launched a scientific training plan aimed at teachers of Infant, Primary and First Secondary Cycle, by conducting both face-to-face and virtual courses.
The collaboration between scientists and teachers has the support of the teacher training centers of the different Councils of Education. These centers summon the professors of the schools of their zone, that receive the initial scientific formation in charge of scientists of the CSIC. This is a statewide program of the Higher Council for Scientific Research that establishes a collaboration between researchers and teachers, whose objective is to introduce the teaching of science from the early stages of education.
The children were very attentive to the explanations of these scientists, and the parents too. They enjoyed presenting their ideas and their work and the researchers were very aware of the clarifications and also offered suggestions and recommendations.
CSIC at school is a very interesting program and I think it would be a good idea to know more about the state of the plan to train teachers to enhance scientific knowledge among the little ones so we will try to expand information with the scientists María José, José María and Martín.
