Experimenting out of the classroom
The LAB OF TOMORROW project aimed to provide science teaching with as many links as possible with everyday life. Students often lose interest in science because they can not relate what they are being taught to their daily life experiences. To overcome the barriers imposed by the traditional classroom setting, a new approach to science teaching was proposed which is based on emerging technologies. A series of technologically advanced tools was developed to allow students to use their everyday environment as the field where they can conduct sophisticated experiments. Tiny programmable devices that can be embedded in clothing and footballs monitor the wearer's running pace or the acceleration of the ball. This practical information can then be translated by means of graphing and analysis software components into examples of theoretical background given at school. All wearable computers and intelligent sensors communicate through an advanced real-time communication system with a PC-based workstation on which students can investigate trends and patterns. Besides deepening their understanding of the science concepts involved in their activities, students will be challenged to learn from their own activities and more importantly, from collaborative activities. For teachers it may offer a major qualitative upgrade to science teaching, something that is particularly important at a time when interest in science is declining among students of high school age. Teachers were therefore involved with researchers in the design of clearly defined methodologies to be adopted for use of the new science teaching framework in a real school environment. The final prototypes were applied through an adapted curriculum in schools in four European countries. Subsequently, students and teachers worked together to design their own projects, setting up their own experiments and defining which parameters to measure.