Attracting students’ attention by presenting contemporary Nobel Prize winning ideas in Physics and by offering activities that are closely related to new technological achievements and everyday life is one of the keys to stimulate students and contribute to the discovery of the next generation of innovators. Students are always fascinated by cutting – edge experiments and are eager to find out as much as they can about them.
The FRONTIERS project, funded by the Erasmus+ framework of the European Commission with Project Reference: 2018-1-IE01-KA201-038817,aimed to demonstrate how Nobel Prize winning Physics can be systematically integrated in the school curriculum. To achieve that, FRONTIERS brought together outreach teams from large scale research infrastructures in frontier Physics that can offer access to rich scientific databases and resources in a variety of fields that can provide a catalyst for science learning. Schools, Universities and Research Centres acted as mediators, organising information – tailored to the needs of their communities – across scientific disciplines and providing tools for understanding complex scientific research, making science understandable and interesting to the public.
FRONTIERS involved numerous teachers in the design and development of innovative classroom activities in collaborative way by developing a network where teachers collaborated with other teachers but also with the outreach teams of large-scale research infrastructures. Being part of a professional network encouraged interaction and provided them with opportunities to enrich their practices and professional context through cooperation within and between schools, universities, and frontier research institutions, collaborative reflection, development and evaluation of instruction, exchange of ideas, materials and experiences, quality development, cooperation between teachers, students and researchers and support and stimulation from research.