Hands-on science: science education with and for society

摘要

The decisive importance of Science on the development of modern societies gives ScienceEducation a role of special impact.Society sets the requirements rules and procedures of Education defining what concepts andcompetencies citizens must learn and how this learning should take place. Educationalpolicies set by governments, elected and or imposed, not always reflects the will and ruling ofSociety.The School as pivotal element of our modern educational system must look behind andbeyond imposed rules and regulations and persistently seek a permanent and open relationwith Society, in all its dimensions, assuming and defending its crucial role on thedevelopment of Society and humankind.Aiming to contribute to an effective implementation of a sound widespread scientific literacyand effective Science Education in our Schools and Society at large, the Hands-on ScienceNetwork promotes a number of meetings and conferences open to the widest range ofcontributions on different pedagogic approaches with the common goal of promoting aneffective learning of Science.This book gathers a number of interesting works presented at the 11th InternationalConference on Hands-on Science held in Aveiro, Portugal, July 21 to 25, 2014. The differentchapters covers a wide range of topics including different strategies on connecting school’science education with society and on synergetic relations between Society and ScienceEducation, reports on good practices on formal as well as non-formal or informal scienceeducation, ICT tools, IBSE, active learning and hands-on pedagogy. We believe that thematerials herein are a rather useful tool to assist teachers and educators as well as allinterested in Science Education and its impact on the development of our Societies.