Our most sincere wishes of a very merry Christmas and a successful and prosperous New Year!

Christmas is all about science. Don't you believe? See the video prepared by experts from Auckland University of Technology.

The final products of MASS Project were presented during the third and the last Education Conference 'Motivate and Attract Students to Science'. This event took place at University of Cologne on 28th – 30th September 2016. It gathered more than 70 science teachers, educators and teachers' trainers from over 20 European countries and United States of America.

The main goal of the conference was to encourage teachers to use technology and online tools in the classroom to engage Digital Learners in science, start with the Inquiry-based learning at the elementary shool level and give appropriate instruction and attention to the Low Achievment students who do not enjoy science. The special guest, dr. Kevin O'Connor from the Mount Royal University, gave a very interesting and inspiring speech on engaging students in place-based science education.

Training session, held in parallel, were the main part of the conference. During the Digital Learners session, the participants were using several digital tools on the topics of renewable ways to safe energy and the creation of resilient cities that stand the test of time. This workhop mainly focused on getting a practical experience in using digital tools to make science lessons more motivating and attractive to the students. Early Inquiry session was mainly dedicated for motivating students for searching answers and training new skills. During the workshop on Low Achievers in Science, the participants could get know more about recommendations to motivate students with low achievement to learn science.

Some more inspirations on using MASS materials were presented during the "Working with MASS-materials in schools" session. This part was mainly focused on impressions and reflections from piloting in european schools.

While the MASS Project will finish at the end of 2016, we believe that the story on motivation of students will be a neverending one.

MASS Project team presented project's experience during the Conference "Science and Math at Schools - Effective and Creative". 

It is the largest national conference of the science teachers with more than 650 participants, August 24th at the University of Latvia. Teachers were interested in the MASS Project materials and tested one of the developed activities.

MASS Project team presented Project experience during the Annual Meeting of the Environmental Educators of Latvia August 5-6 in Malpils. 2 practical workshops were lead by teachers who adapted lesson plans in their classrooms.

Teacher Santa Briede from Amata Primary School presented her experience with weather measurements (WG3 lesson plan “What Will be Weather Today?”). All participant teachers made and tested their own weather instruments.

Daiga Martinsone from Skriveri Secondary School and Anda Freimane from Mazzalve Primary school involved teachers in the practical work on modelling Oil pollution and cleaning it (WG3 Lesson Plan “Environmental Pollution: The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill”).

Finally teachers discussed about motivation of students to learn science.

University of Cologne in collaboration with the MASS project team and the GLOBE Program Regional Coordination Office Europe and Eurasia are pleased to invite the science teaching community to participate in the 3rd Education Conference "Motivate and Attract Students to Science". This time, we will meet in Cologne on 28-30th September, 2016.

Registration is available through the online form. The deadline for the registration is 31st August, 2016.

The Dutch MASS partners will deliver a workshop about the MASS materials during the NIBI conference for biology in Lunteren (27th May). Theme of the day is biodiversity and evolution. More information about the conference can be found here.

This workshop is about one of the digital tools from our teachers tutorial, serious games. Participants will learn why gaming in class can be beneficial to their learning goals and which games are suitable for their students. They will learn from a teacher's experience with the MASS materials and they will be able to try out some games themselves and see how games can serve as an appetizer for certain topics. Afterwards they will reflect on the usability of games in their classes and the possibilities to differentiate in level.

We are happy to announce the first information about 3rd Education Conference "Motivate and Attract Students to Science". It will take place in Cologne (Germany) on 28-30th September 2016.

The aim of the conference is to share the results of almost 3 years MASS-project work on collecting best practices in the use of attractive and effective tools and methods of science teaching at schools, as well as to improve science teaching practice by providing a range of training and classroom materials, tools and methodologies.

The conference will gather experts in the field of education, teaching, training, and applied science from different European countries. The Agenda will include plenary sessions, workshops, poster sessions and practical trainings.

Call for special sessions and abstracts for presentations and posters will follow.

To stay updated follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook. Feel free to share information about the conference among your colleagues  and friends.

See for yourself why it's worth coming to the MASS Conference! See summary video of the 2nd MASS Conference which took place in Warsaw, Nov 2015.