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Vitamin D

This activity is designed to engage a wider range of students. Using the principles of ‘science capital’, it makes the issue of Vitamin D deficiency highly ...

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Exterminate

  Mosquitoes are the world’s most dangerous killer. The diseases they transmit, malaria, Zika and dengue fever, cause more than a million deaths per year. Some scientists have ...

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Eco-phone

  As the number of smartphone users worldwide exceeds 2 billion, and as users update their devices with ever-increasing frequency, there are growing concerns about the impacts ...

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Breaking News: 3 Parents

BREAKING NEWS! The first baby with DNA from three parents has just been born in Mexico. The mother carries the genes for a deadly syndrome ...

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Exterminar [Brasil]

  O mosquito pode ser um assassino perigoso. As doenças transmitidas por determinados mosquitos, Zika, Dengue, Chikungunya, Malária, causam mais de um milhão de mortes por ano. ...

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To frack or not?

The extraction of gas from shale rock – hydraulic fracturing, or fracking – is widespread in the USA. Whilst some countries in Europe have banned fracking ...

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Two degrees

December 2015 was the wettest month in the UK since records began and devastating floods affected thousands of people. Scientists believe climate change may have caused this ...

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Man or machine

Sports records are continually being broken – balls hit harder, javelins thrown further and bicycles travelling faster – but are these improvements down to the athlete ...

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Ban Cola? #Top 3 activity

Now that scientists have discovered that sugar is like an addictive drug, pressure is building for action to reduce the amount of sugar that children ...

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Grow

As people live longer the demand for new organs to replace failed ones increases. One possible solution is to build new organs in a dish from ...

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Ebola #Top 3 activity

Will the next outbreak be a global pandemic? The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa was the largest in history, and killed more than 11,000 ...

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Death to diesel?

Major car manufacturers have fitted software to diesel cars to cheat exhaust emissions tests. In this activity students use their knowledge of chemical reactions to ...

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Electronic cigarettes

Turkey, Wales, Normandy and parts of Canada have recently banned the use of electronic cigarettes indoors, and the EU is considering following their example. Campaigners ...

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Animal testing

1.2 million EU citizens have signed a petition for the complete ban of animal testing. Their argument being it is both unethical and not useful. ...

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Life on Enceladus?

Evidence from Cassini, a robot spacecraft, suggests that there are oceans of hot water on Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus. Might the oceans be home to ...

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Invasion!

Common ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, is an invasive plant which is spreading across Europe. Because of illness caused by its allergenic pollen and competition with crops, ...

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Text neck

New research suggests that smart phone use is seriously damaging our necks. Looking down at an angle places great strain on the spine, and can ...

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Zika

The Zika virus is linked to brain damage in unborn babies and is spreading rapidly through South America. The World Health Organisation declared it an ...

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GM decision

Following a EU rule change, the growing of GM crops across Europe will increase in many countries. It looks likely that GM foods such as ...

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Big bag ban

The EU has recently approved tough new measures to slash the use of plastic bags. New targets will force each country to reduce plastic bag ...

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Chocolate money

Europeans love chocolate – we eat over half the world’s supply! The bad news is that we are eating more cocoa than can be produced ...

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Appliance science

The EU has recently imposed limits on the power ratings of vacuum cleaners, and further limits on other appliances could soon be in place. In ...

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Eat insects

As human population increases, our appetite for meat grows but very soon demand will outstrip supply. Farming large animals puts a strain on our natural ...

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Solar Roadways

Revolutionary roads which stay snow-free, claim developers. A click of a switch they can transform the road into a car park or even sports pitches. In ...

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Making Decisions

Carriers of a inherited condition have to make many difficult decisions including what to do if they want children. In this activity students ...

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Sinking island

The Pacific island nation of Kiribati recently announced its purchase of land in mountainous Fiji for its population to move to when sea ...

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Ban the beds

In preparation for a summer holiday many people turn to sunbeds to top up their tan but could this habit be endangering their ...

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Take the test?

Genetic tests can be used to determine whether a person is a carrier of a genetic condition – but is having a test always the best ...

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Attack of the giant viruses

Scientists have discovered a giant 30 000 year old virus still alive under the permafrost. As the world warms, others will be uncovered. ...

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Car Wars

Imagine it is 2020 and students are about to get their first car. Increased carbon dioxide emissions have led to huge financial incentives to ...

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What does the fox say?

We use the viral video to raise a serious question: can we understand animal talk? ‘Bowlingual’ detects a dog’s emotions by analysing a ...

Big Stuff Blog:

An inspiring conference, say science educators.

The second International conference on Engaging Science for teachers coordinated by Dr. Ale Okada, at the Open University on March 23rd of 2019, presented evidence that the project is sustainable. Some of the key topics discussed by Science teachers were practices and strategies developed to address the key issues raised by the ENGAGE community in the previous conference:

  • What are the benefits and challenges  to promote open schooling through Engaging Science?   
  • How can  science curriculum be more inclusive and unbiased about gender?
  • How can the Science Education curriculum be reshaped so that it’s more fit for purpose?
  • How can an approach focussed on examination success still lead to an enlightened science education?

 

Funded by the the engaging science network, this annual event brought together more than 80 Science teachers from ...

News:

Open Education Global Award !

The Open App to foster inquiry skill for Responsible Research and Innovation developed by the ENGAGE project received a special Award by the Board of Directors and Awards Committee of the Open Education Consortium

The Open App Award for Excellence is presented to an exceptional instrument proven to be an essential tool for professionals, trainers and teachers for building, and delivering open education.

This award is selected by the OE Awards Committee to recognize truly exceptional work in Open Education.

The OU’s new interdisciplinary RUMPUS research group is based in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education, and Language Studies but has members from across the university and outside it. We examine the role of fun in learning and life, for both children and adults, and from both children’s and adults’ perspectives with new educational approaches including open schooling. 

The Open App project is an initiative of Rumpus Centre led by Dr. Alexandra Okada with a group of partners in the UK (David Wortley) and Brazil (Sangar Zucchi, Simone Fuchtler and Karine, Rocha). It focuses on Open Educational Resources (OER) to be designed by youth based on ‘open schooling’ approach to foster skills for Responsible Research and Innovation underpinned by the ENGAGE project (Okada & Sherborne, 2018) . It is funded by Brazil government and supported by 360 in 360 Immersive Experiences (2018-2019). These OER for mobile devices about topical socio-scientific issues can be used, openly and freely, in formal and non-formal settings to enhance students and citizens’ immersive learning with fun and engagement. Our studies suggest that Virtual Reality (VR) can transform the way educational content is delivered making it easy to immerse learners in time and space with real-life settings relevant for society.

The Open App project team will be applauded for their dedication to ...