Page 5 - Standard Indicators for the social appropriation of science
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About the project and the book
This book is the result of a two-and-a-half- the pandemic situation and the particular
year close collaboration between the seven circumstances of COVID-19, the final number
partners of the Erasmus+ KA203 project of participants was reduced, and the Science
“Knowledge, beliefs, perceptions about the camps had to be held online (Teams, Zoom,
science of European students (Persist_EU)”. Blackboard Collaborate) and not in person,
during the spring of 2020, as originally planned.
One of the project’s main objectives was to In any case, being online, we had an advantage,
develop a tool to evaluate European students’ and that is that students from other universities
initial knowledge when configuring their beliefs participated, and therefore the plurality of
and perceptions about different science topics. participants increased. The Science Camps with
Once the tool (platform) had been designed, the students of the five European universities
the next step consisted of carrying out activities allowed us to know the modifications in the
(Science camps), which would allow validating response scales, before and after the training,
the platform and identifying changes in in the four blocks of questions on knowledge,
perception (through questionnaires with Likert belief, trust and perception. All the results of
scales), which students experienced during the five activities are collected in this book and
their participation in training activities, organised guides to replicate the activities in other areas.
within the framework of the project. For this, five From the project consortium, we hope that
Science camps were organised in five European the results obtained will serve to support the
universities, two in central Europe (Germany, platform’s use to make evaluations of specific
Slovakia), and three nations in southern topics or other science dissemination activities
Europe (Portugal, Spain and Italy). Therefore, and incorporate the research results into public
we make sure to cover differences related to health or environmental programs. In short, it
socio-geopolitical issues. The topics that were helps improve science communication.
chosen for the debate were climate change,
genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), The project had two central objectives linked
complementary and alternative medicines to two intellectual outputs. The first intellectual
(CAM) and vaccines, and it was expected product that we developed was an evaluation
that around 100 students would participate in method, based on an open, online platform
each of the universities of the PERSIST_EU so that in the future, any teaching activity
consortium (Valencia, Karlsruhe Institute of and potentially at any educational level
Technology, Trnava, Lisbon, and Vicenza). could evaluate whether students modify
their worldview once they would acquire
The original idea of the project was to have knowledge and training on a subject or, if
the opinions of 500 students, 100 from each despite knowledge, the lack of confidence in
of the participating universities, but due to science, or in a particular subject, continues
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Persist_EU
