Objectives

COSMOS is short for ‘Creating Organisational Structures for Meaningful science education through Open Schooling for all’. Our overall goal is to leverage socio-scientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL) as a pedagogical means for opening up schools to their communities.

We collaborate with primary and secondary schools across Europe, aiming to create new partnerships within communities that can foster science education for all citizens.

Our objectives are to:

1. establish school organizational structures that support open schooling
2. embed school openness, through implementing our specific science pedagogy ‘SSIBL’
3. ensure the viability and sustainability of open schooling

All the work we do within the COSMOS project aims to support impactful practices of science education though open schooling. This impact is achieved in three ways:

1. In the short term. Students who take part in our SSIBL learning activities will gain insight in how science works, what science careers can look like and how science is relevant for everyday life. SSIBL also inspires students to collectively contribute to building a sustainable future.
2. In the medium term. Through the inclusion of stakeholders from outside the school in science education, schools will gradually move along the continuum of inward-to-outward orientation. This renders science teaching more relevant and connected to real-world issues.
3. In the long term. New organisation structures will ensure that open schooling becomes embedded in the DNA of schools, and at the heart of science education. This will foster more interest in science careers and more societally engaged scientists across Europe.