News . Best Practices A successful example of Open Schooling with members of a science club: Rewilding Greece! (Best Practice Greece)

CARE: The authentic socio-scientific issue that the students ‘worried about’ was rewilding – protecting nature by introducing species back to their environment. The science professional was a specialist Biologist who interacted with the students to answer and bring up questions, helping in the discussion with 6 students.

KNOW: The activities which are included in the “know 1 rewilding wolves –food webs competition”. First, we studied the “rewilding know 1” together. In this activity the students understood the food web competitions because there were examples about the correct way of thinking. After that the students worked with the files “apply thinking guide – beaver” and “apply thinking guide -lynx”. I assessed them using the rubric and their work was perfect.

DO: Discussion supported by participatory science have led students to do in-depth research, which changed their way of thinking.  Moreover, they learnt a new skill which is to analyse data and write their conclusion.   This initiative had the consent of the parents and opened up opportunities for dialogue with the family, students and teachers with the consensual approach that is not integrated into the curriculum, but which is important to be discussed with support from the teachers.  The only problem was that the students could not collect the data they needed, for the campaign.

Findings about open schooling: Τhe materials were very well structured and detailed so it was implemented very well within the Club. It was easy to implement because there was no curriculum or time pressure and only 4 students participated. The only difficulty was to arrange the meeting with the scientist.

The science action resources met my needs very well. I worked with the structured scenario in a Science Club. Because of the corona virus situation most of the lessons were online and most of the other Club s stopped because the students didn’t find the online Club interesting. In my club I observed the exact opposite situation. Many students from other clubs asked to come in my club because they learnt from their classmates about the open schooling and how interesting it was.

Outcomes for students: The students reported that they acquired a deeper knowledge of environmental factors. Also, they learned to do in-depth research, which changed their way of thinking. Moreover, they learned to develop an argument and rely on scientific data. They learnt a new skill which is to analyse data and write their conclusion. Finally, they reported that they found this way of learning more interesting and fun