UNESCO：How online science workshops are reaching girls and beyond in Peru amid COVID-19
date：2020-06-17 18:12author：小编source：UNESCOviews：
Samantha, aged 9 from Lima, Peru, was selected to attend this year’s science programme run by UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education laureate, the Mini Academy of Science and Technology, or MaCTec.
When Peru announced that schools would remain closed for the entire 2020 school year due to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, MaCTec needed to rapidly rethink the delivery of their extra-curricular science programme for girls aged 8 to 11.
Engaging girls online
A key concern when lockdown was announced was whether all 40 girls selected to attend this year’s programme would be able to access the workshops if they were held online.
Only 6% of homes in remote areas of Peru have an internet connection, compared to 40% in urban areas and 60% in Lima.
As MaCTec adopted the online meeting platform Zoom to deliver its programme, a priority was to adapt the pedagogy to ensure that girls would engage with and participate in experiments and learner-led discussions.
Scientists leading the workshops created activities and experiments using basic materials easily found at home and fostered group discussions during the Zoom calls. The discussions invited girls to ask questions about what they discovered during the experiments and to develop hypotheses for the next activity, building on what they had learned the week before.
Expanding learning beyond girls
Helping the girls make sense of the current situation, focusing on understanding COVID-19 and viruses more generally was an obvious place to start. So far, activities have ranged from building paper (water-drop) microscopes and examining the effects of COVID-19 on our respiratory systems through hands-on experiments.
Seizing the opportunity to scale up
While the in-person workshops will remain a priority, MaCTec sees the current situation as a window of opportunity.
MaCTec is building on the initial success of the online workshops and is exploring how they can produce high quality material that can be made accessible both online and offline to expand their reach to more girls in Peru.
“By developing science-based activities and resources that are both gender transformative and accessible at any time, we hope to reach many more girls and their families, especially outside of Lima where there are fewer opportunities for girls to engage in science.”
“This crisis has made us more determined than ever to share our inquiry-driven educational model to empower all girls to become critical thinkers and learners who are confident in their abilities”.
Source：https://en.unesco.org/news/how-online-science-workshops-are-reaching-girls-and-beyond-peru-amid-covid-19
When Peru announced that schools would remain closed for the entire 2020 school year due to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, MaCTec needed to rapidly rethink the delivery of their extra-curricular science programme for girls aged 8 to 11.
Engaging girls online
A key concern when lockdown was announced was whether all 40 girls selected to attend this year’s programme would be able to access the workshops if they were held online.
Only 6% of homes in remote areas of Peru have an internet connection, compared to 40% in urban areas and 60% in Lima.
As MaCTec adopted the online meeting platform Zoom to deliver its programme, a priority was to adapt the pedagogy to ensure that girls would engage with and participate in experiments and learner-led discussions.
Scientists leading the workshops created activities and experiments using basic materials easily found at home and fostered group discussions during the Zoom calls. The discussions invited girls to ask questions about what they discovered during the experiments and to develop hypotheses for the next activity, building on what they had learned the week before.
Expanding learning beyond girls
Helping the girls make sense of the current situation, focusing on understanding COVID-19 and viruses more generally was an obvious place to start. So far, activities have ranged from building paper (water-drop) microscopes and examining the effects of COVID-19 on our respiratory systems through hands-on experiments.
Seizing the opportunity to scale up
While the in-person workshops will remain a priority, MaCTec sees the current situation as a window of opportunity.
MaCTec is building on the initial success of the online workshops and is exploring how they can produce high quality material that can be made accessible both online and offline to expand their reach to more girls in Peru.
“By developing science-based activities and resources that are both gender transformative and accessible at any time, we hope to reach many more girls and their families, especially outside of Lima where there are fewer opportunities for girls to engage in science.”
“This crisis has made us more determined than ever to share our inquiry-driven educational model to empower all girls to become critical thinkers and learners who are confident in their abilities”.
Source：https://en.unesco.org/news/how-online-science-workshops-are-reaching-girls-and-beyond-peru-amid-covid-19
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