Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences (CBK PAN), together with its partners: Cité de l’espace and National Space Centre, has taken the realization of an educational project From a screw to a satellite – the best practices of teaching physics in lower secondary schools and physics with astronomy in upper secondary schools.  Due to the long title, the acronym is often used: project SAT, the project raised as a part of the Erasmus+ program. The SAT project answers current issues regarding teaching physics in public schools in Poland, France and the United Kingdom.

According to the research conducted in 2014 by TNS Polska over 53% of all students in Poland dislike physics lessons and as much as 66% of parents consider them to be taught in utterly uninteresting manner. Each organization partaking in the project is willing to exchange experiences and good practices of teaching physics. The cooperation did not end on reports or publications. Coordinators and teachers committed to mutual visits in order to personally find out what interesting lessons may look like.

Our goals

Through our actions we aim to reach teachers of physics and other sciences to support their work starting from the base level of defining what the student are tought. We aspire to see more common use of ICT, interdisciplinary knowledge and students working in groups during lessons in Polish schools.

We want to achieve that by:

• spreading good practices of teaching basing on experience of our partners,
• creating suitable conditions for the teachers to exchange their experiences,
• preparing an innovative teaching program for Polish schools using the method of project-based learning,
• working on exemplary educational projects focused on connecting specific subjects from core curriculum,
• preparing lesson scenarios incorporating elements that incentivize students to be more active,
• preparing a catalogue of good practices of teaching physics in lower and upper secondary schools in France and the UK,
• making teachers more interested in using modern technologies,
• including the space context into physics lessons.

Partners

SAT project is a partnership of three institutions initiated by the Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences. We are supported by Cité de l’espace (Toulouse, France) and National Space Centre (Leicester, United Kingdom).

Cité de l’espace (the City of Space) is a theme park dedicated to space. Available to admire there are expositions of full-sized models, among many others, rocket Ariane 5, space station Mir and the Soyuz modules. Cité de l’espace also has a great lot of exhibits, most of them interactive ones, like: a model of flight control room that allows visitors to prepare a space rocket to lift off, then aid it along the flight and finally place a satellite on the orbit or a model that represents the history of space from the Big Bang to our Solar System. The whole park constitutes one large exploratorium  allowing kids, teenagers and adults to easily comprehend phenomena occurring in nature, learn about the space surrounding us and find out what makes up a flight to the space, what are its consecutive steps and how is life on a space station different than living on Earth

National Space Centre is both a museum and an educational institute devoted to space exploration, space science and astronomy, collaborating with University of Leicester on the space research program. Its whole building is filled with rockets, satellites, martian surfaces and other authentic space artifacts. NSC cooperates with BBC, CNN, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, National Geographic and many others providing them with educational contents.

Actions

During our works on the project we have organized:

• demonstrative lessons
• affiliative visits
• the contest of educational projects for teachers
• conferences and workshops for the teachers

 We encourage you to check out the conference materials of our foreign partners.

 Results

One of the most significant outcomes of this project will be schooling a vast number of physics teachers and provide them ready to use scenarios of interdisciplinary lessons with some additional content. Below you can find links to materials from our site that were developed during the course of the project (in Polish and English languages):

• analysis of needs and the current state of teaching physics in Polish, French and the UK lower and upper secondary schools,
• ready to use educational projects containing scenarios, time-sheets and experiments’ descriptions.
• conference materials,

 The SAT project actions should have an influence on teaching physics. Schools in which the educational projects will be carry on should expect positive results in students marks analysis in a very short time from its incorporation. Students will also benefit from the SAT project. The alteration in methods of teaching should not only affect their interest in physics but also increase their understanding of physical processes.