Abstract:

Over the last ten years the Center for Science Education and Training – CSET (http://education.inflpr.ro/ro/home.htm) at the National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics coordinates national and European projects dedicated to science education support at pre-university level, from kindergarten to high school, projects such as: Fibonacci (http://fibonacci.uni-bayreuth.de/home.html), INSTEM (http://instem.tibs.at/), Creative Little Scientists (http://www.creative-little-scientists.eu/), Inquiry-Based Education in Science and Technology, i-BEST (http://education.inflpr.ro/ro/IBEST.htm), Discover! (http://education.inflpr.ro/ro/Descopera.htm). In the last years, the focus of our activity was inquiry-based science education.

The present paper refers to:
(i) the Creativity in Early Years Science Education – CEYS project (www.ceys-project.eu), dealing with the “action research” (AR) method used to train early years education school teachers in developing children creativity, through science teaching;
(ii) the SUSTAIN project (http://www.sustain-europe.eu/), dedicated to teachers’ professional development for sustainable development education.

In the frame of CEYS project we are running workshops to introduce AR to pre-school and primary school teachers and we are guiding them to use this approach for improving their teaching methods in order to promote and encourage children creativity.
As part of the SUSTAIN project we are working together with other colleagues from Slovenia, Ireland and France to prepare teaching materials and a dedicated handbook to assist primary school teachers to educate their pupils for a sustainable development as it concerns the energy resources available. The teaching aids reflect various aspects of sustainable development as for example: scientific aspects, economic issues and social implications. Our team special subject is related to solar energy.

We shall report our main findings and results as they emerge from our interaction with the Romanian school teachers.

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the European Union Erasmus+ Programme (2014‐2017) under Grant Agreement no: 2014- 1-EL01-KA201-001644 - project Creativity in Early Years Science Education – CEYS and of the Lifelong Learning programme of the European Union under Grant Agreement no: 2013 - 3853/001-001 - the SUSTAIN project.

Keywords:

Primary education, science teaching.