Virtual Pathways: Reinforcing School-Museum Cooperation in COVID19 Times

The VIRTUAL PATHWAYS project aims to demonstrate a way for school communities to continue having access (during the current pandemic) to services and learning resources of science museums and science centres through the demonstration of a new method of interaction between the visitor and the exhibition. Digital technologies can facilitate this new form of collaboration – between schools and science centres and museums. The impact of informal learning settings in students learning and their overall contribution to formal education has been demonstrated in numerous studies and in the literature. Students field trips are part of the educational programme of all schools across Europe. Many exhibitions of the science centres are being developed with the school curriculum as a reference. This very powerful interaction has been hit by the COVID-19 crisis. The proposed project will provide the opportunity for schools and museums to work together, through small, experimental projects, to apply digital technologies to a selected area of activities (from the first scientific revolution in 1600 till the current Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, the natural history of Europe, climate change) in an innovative way. The project will demonstrate and support the development of solutions that enhance the digital presence of the museums in students learning, experiment with online field trips enriched with 3D digitization and AR/VR applications for the students, tap in the creative potential of technology to offer transformative experiences for schools. The project will also propose and test a new model for cooperation between schools and museums that could be also useful for post-crisis times. The project approach is based on the Open Schooling concept, that promotes the collaboration of schools with non-formal and informal education providers, enterprises and civil society enhanced to ensure relevant and meaningful engagement of all societal actors with science and increase the uptake of science studies and science-based careers, employability and competitiveness. Individual schools are working with science centres and museums, industries, research institutes, universities in an innovative collaboration towards the introduction of open schooling approaches through a bottom-up approach. By building on the best of current practice, such an approach aims to take us beyond the constraints of present structures of schooling toward a shared vision of excellence. Such an innovation programme holds great potential. If we want a powerful and innovative and open culture in schools that is self-sustaining, we have to empower system-aware practitioners to create it, whilst avoiding simply creating interesting but isolated pockets of experimentation. Such a partnership fosters expertise, networking, sharing and applying science and technology research findings and that bringing real-life projects to the classroom, supporting the development of 21st-century competencies (creative problem solving, learning by doing, experiential learning, critical thinking and creativity) including projects and activities that simulate the real scientific work.Bringing together expertise from innovative interventions in schools and informal (science centres and museums) learning settings and, along with a large school community across Europe the proposed consortium possesses a well-balanced set of competencies and expertise and is capable of delivering the aforementioned results in a timely and high-quality manner.