ASCERTAINING THE USE OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES IN PROMOTING LEARNERS’ HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT IN MULTICULTURAL SCHOOL SETTINGS

Encouraging learners to participate in extracurricular activities should commence in the early phase of their growth where a basis for their personality, learning and development is laid. Extracurricular activities could further assist in improving learners’ creativity and artistic talents. Philosophers, such as Rousseau, Spencer and Dewey further reiterate the value of extracurricular activities in developing social relationships and intellectual intelligence. Learners associate with different peer groups which may satisfy their socialisation, self-assessment, self-identification and the fulfilment of their needs in becoming self-actualised. Learners can further be enabled to reach self-actualisation by participating in academic activities, such as maths, science clubs and research projects. Such activities seemingly contribute to learners’ academic development which in turn may assist them in mastering certain life tasks; developing leadership roles; increasing their involvement in the community and expressing their civil responsibility. Amidst the latter, it is noted that the lack or in some cases, the non-existence of extracurricular activities hinder learners’ growth and learning, especially in multicultural school settings, where the foundation for learners’ development has to occur in a conducive environment. Multicultural schools in the Letjweleputswa educational district, Free State province of South Africa seem not to use extracurricular activities as an effective tool in promoting learners’ holistic development. The aim of this paper is to ascertain the use of extracurricular activities in promoting learners’ holistic development in the Letjweleputswa educational district. Via a qualitative research methodology, three focus group interviews were conducted with 20 learners attached to four multicultural schools. Findings of the study revealed that learner participants are of the view that their involvement in extracurricular activities could give them a greater chance of being employed; of getting a better job; of being accepted into university and of developing certain attributes, such as creativity, innovation, problem solving and endurance. The study further recommends that multicultural schools in the Letjweleputswa educational district need to implement various extracurricular activities as a means of developing various traits and competencies such as learners’ physical-, emotional-, cognitive and social skills; moral underpinnings, life-skills, well-being, leadership qualities, analytical thinking processes and communication abilities.

Applying Citizen Science for Sustainable Development: Rainfall Monitoring in Western Nepal

We introduce a case-study agnostic framework for the application of citizen science in a sustainable development context. This framework is tested against an activity in two secondary schools in western Nepal. While the purpose of this activity is to generate locally relevant knowledge on the physical processes behind natural hazards, we concentrate here on its implementation, i.e., to obtain a better understanding of the dynamic of the activity and to learn how it should be implemented. We determined the social capital of secondary schools as a gateway to the local community: they provide a unique setting to bring different stakeholders together. We find that co-designing a teaching programme is an effective means of both complementing local curricula and ensuring continued buy-in of local stakeholders (i.e., teachers). Student engagement depends on the local relevance of teaching materials, with more holistic or global concepts, such as climate change of lesser importance. Our activity focused on rainfall, including student-led data collection. These rainfall data provide a very good fit to co-located rain gauge data, with an average difference on weekly readings of 11.8%, reducing to 8.3% when averaged over all student readings. The autonomous development of student-organized science clubs suggested that our original framework underestimated students' capacity to apply knowledge elsewhere creatively. These clubs may be used to obtain participant feedback to improve and tailor future activities. Quantitative assessment of long-term sustainability remains challenging, due in part to high levels of student turnover. We suggest that integrating scientists wherever possible within a school or local community has a direct and positive result on participant retention.

OS CLUBES DE CIÊNCIAS COMO CONTEXTOS DE FORMAÇÃO INICIAL DOCENTE: CONTRIBUIÇÕES A PARTIR DA PRODUÇÃO CIENTÍFICA DE UM COLETIVO PIBID

This research is developed in order to articulate understandings about the initial formation of teachers in contexts of Non-FormalEducation, the Science Clubs. Between the years 2014 to 2017, a group of scholarship holders from the Institutional Scholarship Program for Teaching Initiation, shared teaching experiences in Science Clubs and in their recorded path about their educational practices, disseminating them in publications. Therefore, we aim to elucidate, based on an analysis of the scientific production developed by this group about educational practices in Science Clubs, contributions to the training of teachers. For this, we carried out a bibliographic research, with a study of the scientific production of this collective and the interpretation of the data, considering a priori categories elaborated from the "five focuses of teacher learning" and "five positions for teacher training". 65 works were inventoried and worked, disseminated at local, national and one international events. Its analysis in the budgets interpret that the PIBID movement, in university-school relations, strengthened Science Clubs to become spaces with formative power, enabling undergraduate students experiences that mobilized the preparation of practical teaching knowledge (pedagogical composition) and its reflection (investigative recompositing); the interest in teaching (personal disposition), the cultivation of belonging to the teaching community and the development of the teaching identity (professional interposition) in articulations of Non Formal Education and the school.

STEM Learning Based on Aircraft Design: An Interdisciplinary Strategy Developed to Science Clubs Colombia

This article describes a STEM learning strategy based on aircraft design in order to promote the development of aeronautical science in Colombia. This teaching strategy was developed by specialized instructors from the Science Clubs Colombia program, seeking to stimulate in young Colombian students their passion for science, technology, and innovation, and in the process, create an international network of academic collaborations. Bloom’s taxonomy was used to classify and select both the educational objectives, as well as the teaching plan of the science club. STEM activities that encourage students to perform hands-on learning experiences were the basis of this framework. Essentially, interdisciplinary activities involving aeronautics, electronics, computational simulations, and technical drawing; characterized this science club. As a result, the students were able to design, manufacture and test their own hand-launched air-model, applying all steps of the scientific method: the conception of ideas, design, execution of experiments, and communication of results. After the first flight tests of the air-models, the students disclosed an ability to apply their mathematics knowledge in conjunction with their science learning on the forces of flight, in order to improve their launching technique. Therefore, both the time and range of the air-models were enhanced. Finally, both students and instructors benefited throughout the learning interaction, since it was the first time that a rural community is the scenario of an aeronautical engineering training process. It is expected that the dissemination of this material will contribute to the Colombian aeronautical community, giving outlooks for new research proposals and cooperation frameworks between government entities and universities.

Keeping the Flame Lit: The Value of the Long-Term Permanence of a Science Club

Science clubs are programs that allow people (especially children and youngsters) to meet regularly outside of school programs and engage with science and technology activities. Clubs encourage participants to foster attitudes, capabilities, and knowledge related to STEM fields with the goal of promoting interest and passion about science. As such programs provide big opportunities to improve the impact of public communication of science activities, it is really important to look at the impacts of such programs. Quark Group runs the Children Science Club since 2002, and up to 2016, it developed science recreation activities with 711 children and young people. In order to establish the influence the club had on its participants, we conducted a survey that provided 244 answers. This article presents the findings of this follow-up study.