Outreach initiatives operated by universities for increasing interest in science and technology

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, the low number of students choosing to study science and technology in higher education has been on the societal agenda and many initiatives have been launched to promote awareness regarding career options. The initiatives particularly focus on increasing enrolment in the engineering programmes. This article describes and compares eight European initiatives that have been established and operated by universities (and in some cases through collaboration with other actors in society). Each initiative is summarised in a short essay that discusses motivation, organisation, pedagogical approach, and activities. The initiatives are characterised by comparing the driving forces behind their creation, how the initiative activities relate to the activities at the university, size based on the number of participants and cost per participant and pedagogical framework. There seem to be two main tracks for building outreach activities, one where outreach activities are based on the university's normal activities, and one where outreach activities are designed specifically for the visiting students.

KEYWORDS:

• Outreach
• outreach initiatives
• engineering education
• pre engineering education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Lena Gumaelius is Head of the Department of Learning at the School of Education and Communication in Engineering Sciences (ECE), KTH. Lena has a Master of Science in Chemistry (1993) and a Ph.D. in Environmental Microbiology (2001). Lena has a background as a researcher in Biotechnology, in which field she still teaches undergraduate students at KTH. In parallel with her research, she worked for several years with development of experiments for students at Vetenskapens Hus. In 2006, Lena became the director of Vetenskapens Hus, where she remained until 2012. During these years, Lena developed her pedagogical skills and competence in the pedagogic field and besides leading the activities she organized pedagogical training for teachers, pupils and university students. Since 2011, Lena is head of the new Department of Learning at ECE, KTH. In this position, Lena is responsible for establishing a new strong research environment in technology- and engineering education, K-12 to university level. Lena has her own research interests in the field of outreach and attractiveness. Lena has been involved in many outreach projects during the years. Mentioned can be Science on Stage, Teknikåttan, The Boost of Technology, Tekniksprånget, Learning with ATLAS@CERN and more.

Monica Almqvist is associated professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Lund University, Sweden. Her main research interest is in ultrasound beam characterization and dolphin echolocation. She is the initiator and director of Vattenhallen Science Center which bring 40,000 school students and visitors to Lund University each year.

Anna S. Árnadóttir completed her Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics from Lund University in 2009 and thereafter started working on establishing a planetarium at the Vattenhallen Science Center. She now manages the planetarium full time.

Anders Axelsson is Professor in Chemical Engineering and is presently Dean at the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University. His research is within pharmaceutical technology, especially mathematical modelling of controlled release pharmaceuticals. Anders was the founder of Vattenhallen Science Center.

J. Alberto Conejero is associate professor at the School of Informatics – iSchool of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) in Spain, where he obtained his Ph.D. In 2004, he obtained the outstanding dissertation award of this institution. He is also researcher at the Instituto Universitario de Matema'tica Pura y Aplicada (IUMPA-UPV). His interests are the study of the linear dynamics of operators and C0-semigroups of operators, functional analysis, and multidisciplinary applications of graph theory. He is also interested in educational topics such as academic performance, mentoring programs, and the development of soft skills for engineers. Nowadays, he is also Deputy Secretary General of the University.

José P. Garcia-Sabater is Full Professor of Operations Management in the Departamento de Organización de Empresas at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) in Spain. He received his Ingeniero Industrial Degree and his Ph.D. from this university. He also received a Combined Eng Degree from Coventry University in UK. He is currently the Head of the Department of Business Management at the UPV. He is also member of the Governing Board of the University. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of supply chain and operations management. His research has focused on empirical studies of operations management in several key industries mainly at the Automotive Industry.

Lene Klitgaard holds a master of Aesthetics and Culture. She is an experienced project manager and has been managing the Science Center at Aalborg University since 2003. Beside this she has been the head of sectretariat at the Center for Applied Experience Economy at Aalborg University from 2006 to 2010 where the academic focus was experience design, concept design and user experience with storytelling and aesthetic instruments as the main topic.

Cecilia Kozma has a Master of Science in Engineering Physics and a Ph.D. in astronomy. Cecilia has a background as a researcher in astronomy. Since 2004, Cecilia has been working at the House of Science with development of pedagogical activities for pupils and teachers and arranging events in physics, astronomy, and mathematics. For example, Cecilia has arranged events such as “International Masterclasses-hands on particles” and “Astronomy Day and Night”. She has also experience from previous EU-projects such as “EU-HOU – Connecting classrooms to the Milky Way” and “Learning with ATLAS@CERN”. Cecilia has been teaching courses in astronomy, as well as pedagogical courses at the university. She was the Head of the physics and mathematics laboratories at Vetenskapens Hus until she became director for House of Science in 2013.

Julien Maheut is a researcher at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV) in Spain. He received his Ph.D. at the UPV. He has an M.Sc. degree in Supply Chain Management and Logistics from the UPV and an M.Sc. degree from Arts et Métiers ParisTech (France). He is a member of Research Groups ROGLE. His research interests include industrial engineering, supply chain management, collaborative planning, modelling, and simulation.

Juan A. Marin-Garcia is Full Professor at the Departamento de Organización de Empresas in the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). He lectures on management, teamwork, and human resources management since 1994, in Industrial Engineering and Business Management degrees. He also lectures and coordinate master’s degrees and Ph.D. program. He participates as trainer for university lecturers and staff. With regard to these areas he has also worked as a consultant for some companies in Spain and El Salvador (Central America). He is foundation member of Research Groups ROGLE and i-GRHUP where he develops his activities in different projects. He is foundation member and develops pedagogic activities inside IEMA (Innovation Group for Assessment and Active Methodologies). His main research fields are participative management, continuous improvement, lean manufacturing systems, TQM, TPM, performance evaluation, and active learning in higher education.

Henrik Mickos graduated in Organic Chemistry, Stockholm University and is a close collaborator with his company HVM consult for the summer school. Henrik is the initiator and founder of the summer school that with its successful structure is still running every year. As an educator of teachers and high school students in many projects connecting the academic, industry and high school world he has been an initiator of many projects running within this program.

Per-Olof Nilsson is a professor in Physics at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. His research field was originally the electronic structure of solids with about 200 publications in international, refereed journals and about 200 more articles from conferences, books, etc. Prof Nilsson is now employed at the Department of Applied Information Technology. Since 1997 he runs the ‘House of Learning’ including ‘Scientific Toys’, a world-unique exhibition and workshop with about 300 experimental set-ups on a 600 m² area, for all ages and categories of people. The activity has resulted in a dozen of spin-off projects, for example, the Forum for Applied Neuroscience, where results from brain studies are applied on teaching (neurodidatics). These activities have resulted in numerous prizes and awards.

Agneta Norén holds a senior scientist position at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Stockholm University. Agneta Norén teaches Biochemistry at the undergraduate programs at Stockholm University since 2000 and also been involved in course developments at this level. Additionally, she has been involved in a number of extra training courses of high school teachers. In 1999–2012, she developed and ran an extensive outreach program from the chemistry section at SU. Her research deals with prokaryotic nitrogen metabolism at a molecular level with special focus on metabolic regulation of nitrogen fixation.

Margarida Pinho-Lopes is a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering. She was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Aveiro, Portugal, between 2006 and 2013, and a Senior Lecturer at University of Brighton, UK, between July 2013 and January 2015. Presently, she is a Lecturer in Geomechanics at University of Southampton. She teaches or has taught Soil Mechanics (undergraduate) and Foundations and Bearing Structures (graduate) and Application of Geosynthetics in Civil Engineering (graduate). She does research into Geotechnics, particularly into the application of geosynthetics.

Manfred Prenzel is Chair holder of the Susanne Klatten Endowed Chair of Educational Research at the TUM School of Education. Since 2014, he has been Chair of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat). He was Dean of the TUM School of Education from 2009 to 2014. Beforehand, he was Managing Director of the Leibniz-Institute for Science Education (IPN), Kiel from 2000 to 2009. He was Director of the Leibniz-Institute for Science Education (IPN) as well as Professor of Education at the University of Kiel in the time from 1997 to 2009. From 1993 to 1997, he was Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Regensburg. His major research emphases are research on learning and instruction with focus on science education, large scale assessment and international comparitive studies, quality development and professional development in education as well as learning outside of school (museum, science centres).

Johanna Ray is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the TUM School of Education, Department of Empirical Educational Research. She received her Ph.D. degree from the Faculty of Education, Åbo Akademi University in Vaasa, Finland (2004). Her research interests encompass teacher characteristics, admission for teacher education, respectively, applicant selection procedures as well as PISA, international perspectives on teacher education and cultural education.

Torgny Roxå has been academic developer and educational advisor at LTH, Lund University since 1994. His research interests are strategic educational development and gender in engineering education.

Miriam Voss is Akademische Rätin (academic councillor) at the TUM School of Education, professorship of museum education. She is responsible for the project management of the TUMlab in the Deutsches Museum. Her research interests include the relationship of science, media and the public, science communication and science & technology studies.

ORCID

J. Alberto Conejero http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3681-7533

Notes

1. The development of the new course programme ‘Environmental engineering' was rendered possible by funds of the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt.

2. The Deutsche Telekom-Stiftung supported the project TUM@SCHOOL – SCHOOL@TUM at the TUM School of Education since 2010 to strengthen teacher training.

3. This affiliation is in fact doubled: The general director of the Deutsches Museum is at the same time holder of the Oskar von Miller-chair for science communication at TUM. Oskar von Miller was the founder of the Deutsches Museum.