Science Workshop for Young Minds
The EPS Young Minds Section is now planning its 2nd Science Workshop for Young Minds in late 2013 or 2014, and is asking for volunteers and ideas!
The first “Science Workshop for Young Minds” [SWYM] was held in September 2012 in cooperation with the Institute of Photonic Sciences [ICFO] and involved a week full of activities for high school students interested in optics, photonics and sciences.
The activity addressed a select group of 30 high school students who, during five days, were completely involved in science. Living in a scientific institution they participated in real experiments in an encouraging atmosphere. The students improved their knowledge in an environment more stimulating than what they normally find at their educational centres.
The Young Minds visited the ICFO labs where many world class scientists carry out cutting edge experiments. They were introduced to the day-to-day life of a scientist and were encouraged to get involved in science and research in the future.
The Young Minds approach advocates inquiry based science education where students are actors. Learning becomes more interesting and lively, compared with the standard lecture based approach in high schools. For this reason, during the lab tours and the experiments, Young Minds members used a proactive method of teaching, in which students participated actively in the acquirement of the conclusions, where PhD students were more ‘guides’ rather than teachers.
Within the frame of the last 2nd EPS Young Minds Leadership Meeting, it was noted how the EPS Young Minds initiative could generate close links with other student chapters from Europe and forster the organisation of the second edition of the SWYM in a spirit of cooperation thanks to the close links generated during the meeting.
