Schools Study Earthquakes

Europe’s long-term capacity to innovate will decline if young people’s interest for key science studies and mathematicscontinue to decline as many studies found in recent years. Furthermore, among the population in general, the acquisition ofskills that are becoming essential in all walks of life, in a society increasingly dependent on the use of knowledge, is also underthreat and will continue to be so unless a radical change in people’s, and especially in youth’s, interest in science and technologyis made. Since this interest is fostered and culminated by the youth during its primary and secondary education ages, radicalchanges, innovative practices and methodologies are significant key elements to achieve reversal of trends and attitudes. In thiscontext, the “Schools Study Earthquakes” (SSE) project focused on the study in the reality of classroom practice of a physicalphenomenon with great societal impact and proposed pedagogical practices based on inquiry-based methods that are moreeffective in science education. The objective of this combination was on one hand to increase children’s and students’ interest inscience, on how science is made and how it affects every-day life, and on the other to stimulate teacher motivation on up-takinginnovative teaching methods, subjects and practices to enrich and renew the science curriculum. The SSE project also providedincreased opportunities for cooperation and collaboration between schools across different areas and countries and encouragerelationships between stakeholders of both formal and informal education. It also proposedand built a network of schools that studied real data, did real analysis of real situations and real earthquake phenomena in real time. Teachers are key players in therenewal of science education and among other methods, thus being part of a network allowed them to improve the quality of theirteaching, supported their motivation and stimulatedtheir morale which then was passed to learners with long-term implications.The SSE project enhanced secondaryscience teachers’ capacity to teach science effectively based on the pedagogical principles of inquiry-based science educationwhile being able to engage students in employing real-problem solving skills, handling and studying situations, and participatingin meaningful and motivating science inquiry activities. The active participation of teachers in the project activities equipped themwith the necessary knowledge and skills to reflect on their practice and to make them feel empowered to exploit the potential of inquiry-basedapproaches and acquired skills in conceptualizing, planning and evaluating their didactical approaches and methodology. The SSE project brought together a consortium of six distinguished partners from five countries across Europe,namely Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Turkey, Bulgaria, all with significant seismic activity. The consortium had all the characteristicsnecessary to guarantee the successful and efficient realization of the project activities and workedeffectively and continue to work towards expanding theSSEapproach and school network across Europe.