Promoting Attainment of Responsible Research & Innovation in Science Education (PARRISE)

parrise logo

Promoting Attainment of Responsible Research & Innovation in Science Education (PARRISE) is a 4-year project funded under the European Commission FP7 Science in Society programme. PARRISE focuses on developing best practices of professional development programmes for pre-service and in-service science teachers  with an aim to promote responsible research and innovation in science education both at the primary and secondary school levels.

The professional development programmes developed are based on the SSIBL framework, which combines elements of socioscientific issues, inquiry-based learning, citizenship education and responsible research and innovation in order to engage young people learning science for and in society. PARRISE is coordinated by the Freudenthal Institute of Science and Mathematics Education, Utrecht University, The Netherlands and consists of 18 partner institutions from 11 EU and related countries.

The aims of the PARRISE project are to:

  1. Provide an overall educational framework for socio-scientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL) in formal and informal learning environments;
  2. Identify examples of best practice;
  3. Build transnational communities consisting of science teachers, science teacher educators, science communicators, and curriculum and citizenship education experts to implement good practices of SSIBL;
  4. Develop the SSIBL competencies among European primary and secondary science teachers and teacher educators;
  5. Disseminate resources and best practice through PARRISE website, digital and print-based publications online and face to face courses authored by national and international networks;
  6. Evaluate the educators’ success using the improved SSIBL materials with pre-service and in-service teachers.

PARRISE at Southampton Education School

Southampton Education School, represented by Prof Marcus Grace and Dr Andri Christodoulou is leading the work package focusing on development professional development programmes at the lower secondary education level. During the 2014-15 academic year, we have worked with the Secondary PGCE Science team at Southampton Education School, in developing and trialling our professional development programme for SSIBL with our provider-led and School Direct pre-service teachers.

some of the work produced during a climate change activity

some of the work produced during a climate change activity

Using contexts such as climate change, health, nutrition and reproduction, our pre-service teachers have had the opportunity to consider how science and society are interlinked and how they could portray these links in their science teaching in a way that not only promotes conceptual understanding but also citizenship education.2015-06-26 14.33.52

It was promising to see the enthusiasm and engagement that our pre-service teachers showed for teaching science using a socio-scientific inquiry  based learning approach and we aim to develop these activities and resources further during 2015-16 and 2016-17.

If you would like to know more about the project and how to get involved please contact Marcus Grace (M.M.Grace@soton.ac.uk) or Andri Christodoulou (A.Christodoulou@soton.ac.uk).

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