Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SESAM2030 (SESAM2030 - science, citizens, schools and a hungry planet)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-07-01 do 2024-06-30
The overall objective of SESAM is to increase the understanding of researchers role in society with a particular emphasis on young people and their families any general tool increased understanding of how research contribute to societal benefits. It’s part of the European Researchers Night and we use the school as the main hub for our activities and to engage young people, their teachers, their peers, their families along with mentors from local community to contribute to that improved understanding. We use a thematic approach to science communication in the sense that food, nature, climate and the green economy form the foundation for all activities. Each year we work with a portfolio of schools over the spring to prepare different installations, prototypes, mock ups and learning stations that represent some kind of scientific challenge and some kind of insight into what good research can do to address that challenge. All installations, prototypes, mock ups and learning stations are prepared over the spring and summer at school and are put on exhibition at the final SESAM event right after the summerbreak. The final event takes place on the official European researchers night date end of September. In both the 22 and 23 rounds we used two locations: One in East of Denmark in cooperation with Swedish partners and one in the South West of Denmark in cooperation with German partners. As such SESAM includes three countries with DK as the main contributor and Germany and Sweden as co-contributors. In all case young people and the science teaching at school functions as the setting in which we practice science communication to a wider audience. We communicate science in a very popular way using tools such as demos, panel debates, posters, intermezzos, quizzes, foodscape walkabouts science slams and similar activities. We apply a cross disciplinary approach involved in both the natural sciences the humanities and the social sciences.
The work performed has been the planning and the execution of the SESAM approach to ERN in two separate rounds: the 2022 round and the 2023 round. Overalll we managed to establish a good cooperation with the venues and their surrounding schools and we managed to prove that we can make schools, their teachers in cooperation with mentors from surrounding communities and university to work in a committed manner over a period of three months in the spring to prepare the different installations, learning stations, mock ups prototypes etc that eventually go on display at the two final events. As such we have made a substantial contribution to the science teaching and we have showed how tangible and everyday life topics such as food and climate can act as learning opportunities when combined in a science context at school. We have also showed how food and climate can add to the Education for Sustainable Development and the SDG teaching at school. We have showed along with the teachers and the schools that we are able to develop a strong scientific concept and good principles for science communication using food in a broad sense as the thematic foundation. We worked around the idea of explainers meaning that all installations at the events were connected closely to a scientific principle and to the capacity of being able to explain the scientific element and the research component to outside visitors. In addition we were able to prove that is possible too in all cases include the digital component adding to the understanding of technology and computational thinking.
During the two rounds of the SESAM 2030 we have been able to demonstrate results as anticipated in the application, but besides that we see some additional co benefits. For instance we have been able to link the idea of science communication and interest in higher education to the career vacations that increasingly is seen as a task for schools. We have been able been able to show that for young people to engage actively in learning about sustainable development and green transformation, there is a need for scientific understanding and understanding of how research contribute to that transformation. In particular, we have been able to show that there is a close connection between green food systems transformation and the climate crisis. In that way we have been able to show and demonstrate very concretely for young people and their teachers that their contribution to sustainable development is linked in their understanding of how the overall food and agricultural metabolism. We have also been able to illustrate the value and importance of young people solutions meaning that since the system is working very concretely with construction, engineering, building, carpentry etc in many cases we are able to prove and demonstrate that young people at school can actually work with concrete solutions to solve problems.