Abstract:

Today, when health systems are more efficient and European citizenshave a greater life expectancy, an ever growing group of retirees who are no longer in old age, but rather a new youth it is found. This new collective asset is demanding new and very diverse activities. To meet this demand, public institutions have adapted and increased, among other, sports, tourism and leisure activities, intended exclusively for seniors. In addition, these group of persons also require academic training.

Moreover, until the twentieth century, learning and training have always been considered as part of a life experience that developed in childhood and youth, adulthood being exempt from such training responsibilities. However, in this century we face an ever-changing world that requires us to evolve into a hitherto unknown speed. This forces us to turn to continuing education throughout life. Those models based on an unique activity developed by one person through his life are obsoleted. Not surprisingly, at the sixties, UNESCO established this lifelong learning as one of the main challenges for educational restructuring worldwide. So, the concept of life long learning appears.

Combining both longevity and changing reality, adults are increasingly demanding a comprehensive training program that responds to different learning concerns from the Spanish university to complete their degrees and graduate programs for the elderly, retired or specifically targeting people close to retirement age who wish to acquire new knowledge have emerged. Among this strategies, some subjects have been treated, from legal themes, to face up and to know more about some usual situations , to purely cultural issues.

Within University of Jaén, and at the specific the program for the elderly, we have addressed science as an excuse to develop different cognitive abilities. Therefore, in this program and as an example, we have teached the subject "Mathematics of everyday life", far from addressing abstract mathematics, aims to bring basic math and not so basic to adults through games, movies, ... In short, the objective formulated was to ensure participants the opportunity to clarify, improving and completing the scientific knowledge with no intention beyond pure knowledge.

As a result of this experience we can conclude that a very high percentage of students expressed, through surveys carried out after completing the courses, a very favorable opinion and demand more scientific subjects.

Keywords:

Science, elderly, experience.