HYPATIA

The Official Journal of the European Union in May 22nd 2018 published the Council Recommendation on key competences for lifelong learning, in which it is sustained the importance of “fostering the acquisition of competences in sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), taking into account their link to the arts, creativity and innovation and motivating more young people, especially girls and young women, to engage in STEM careers”. Considering the European key competence considered strategic we can find the Mathematical competence and competence in science, technology and engineering.
The science competence is referred to the ability of explaining the word around us using the bodies of knowledge and methodologies, including observation and experimentation, to identify problems and draw conclusions based on empirical evidence and the willingness to do it.
This competence includes also an attitude of critical assessment and curiosity, the interest for ethical issues and attention both for safety and environmental sustainability, in particular as regards the scientific and technological progress in relation with the individual, the family, the community and questions of global dimension.
This means that the children’s natural inclination for discovering require the organization of actions and everyday situations that can extend their opportunities.
Starting from the daily life experiences, in fact, it is possible to increase in children observational and logical-mathematical skills that support the development of scientific competences.
From pedagogical researches and epistemological reflections it emerges that in children an effective understanding and internalization of concepts occurs only following a personal cognitive activity. This cognitive activity can be profitably stimulated if the child is placed in the condition to reflect on challenging contexts: therefore, the observational-experimental phase has a fundamental role. For this reason in the Pre-School, scientific education cannot ignore the active involvement of children in observation and experimentation activities; direct experience provides the referential anchorage that allows them to have a concrete basis from which to move towards abstraction.
Teachers who work in early childhood services across Europe must ask themselves about which contexts, which strategies, which didactic activities can encourage children to get closer to scientific thought in order to provide experiences and opportunities for further study within the different school subjects.
It therefore becomes important that the pre-school curriculum invests on the development of scientific thinking for boys and girls and on the training of teachers for this purpose.
The Erasmus + project aims are acquiring an international reference theoretical framework on the topics of learning scientific thinking, according to a socio-constructivist approach; defining methodology and tools for the observation of exploratory, dialogical and reflective activities of boys and girls; to promote teachers' competences in promoting the scientific thinking of boys and girls; designing tools and equipment that encourage the exploration and scientific symbolization of boys and girls; conducting observational research for insights, analysis, dissemination; developing European guidelines on the promotion of scientific thinking in early childhood services for boys and girls.

The application is going to be submitted under the KA2 (Key action): “Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices - Strategic partnerships in the field of education, training and youth” and we are going to be the coordinator.

The project will develop the following activities and every partner will be responsible for at least one of them:

- drafting a report based on the analysis of existing literature and documentation, including interpretations and understandings of the existing procedures, methodologies, approaches along with examples of ongoing practices on the above mentioned focus of the project; the target of the research will be on an European level;
- training needs analysis: every partner will share its analysis of the lack of competences and consequently the related training needs of the staff involved.
- development of Training and Module Guides: the project crew will develop a shared training program to be delivered in every country, and the partners will agree on the minimum number of trainees involved. The training will include, in class and on line sessions (the online sessions will be mostly related to technical issues) along with a project work on the field and a final test. Every partner will be responsible for the creation of at least one module of the training program;

- following the delivery of the training modules and the feedback collected from the trainees, the trainers, the project works, one partner, with involvement of the rest of the crew will draft and share the above mentioned guidelines;

- every partner will host at least one transnational meeting where the crew will discuss the ongoing and future activities;

- every partner will organize at least one multiplier event in order to match the dissemination requests of the funding agency and it will set the minimum number of participants;