summer science factorysummer science factory

scientific workshopsscientific workshops

Motto: research it yourself!

split, čakovec and samoborsplit, čakovec and samobor

129 participants with 58 mentorsworked in 24 different workshops (themes)

for youth from 8 to 18for youth from 8 to 18

Mainly primary school pupils

WHERE

ARE

THEY

FROM

Total number of participantsTotal number of participantsIn five years we had 305 participants on the workshops.

Usually we have twice that number of applicants – this year we managed to accept all that applied.

Distribution by ageDistribution by ageMost of the participants go to primary schools. Number of their applications is rising so we plan more workshops targeted at them.

High school workshops first started in 2009. and the number of participants in them stagnates at ~ 20/year

we work in small groupswe work in small groups

Every group performs a small guided inquiry project that lasts for a week

2011 workshops by discipline2011 workshops by discipline

Workshops are mostly from natural science disciplines, but this year we had workshops from psychology.

Many of workshops are interdisciplinary in nature, so the shown distribution is a rough estimate.

Also the theme of specific workshops is not always the same as the area in which mentors are specialized.

Workshop themes in five yearsWorkshop themes in five yearsThe number of workshops has risen in years, and so did the diversity of disciplines. Although the level of interdisciplinarity has always been high (especially in 2007. which was very mixed, the graph is an estimate) until 2009. workshops were mostly biological, but after the implementation of open call for mentor diversity has definitely set in.

who does all this?who does all this?

Students and young scientists develop and facilitate workshops.

What do they do in life?What do they do in life?

Mostly students (80%):25 undergraduate (bacc.)20 graduate (master)

Others work in science, teaching and private sector:3 phd students3 high school teachers3 scientist (have phd)2 private sector

Students study at University of Zagreb (34) and Split (11), but there was more interested students from Rijeka. They come from all parts of Croatia although most of them study in Zagreb.

... ... howhow it it lookedlooked earlierearlierThe number of mentors is rising, and most of them are students

It's seems that the number of "older" mentors is rising.

Gender distributionGender distributionIn the first two years the ratio was even (when we didn't have an open call for mentors).

From 2009. onwards most of the mentors are female, so the average for last 5 years is 30/70

www.tvornica-znanosti.orgwww.tvornica-znanosti.org

• new ideas:projects defined by youthsemester long projects and teacher integrationbetter mentor educationevaluation & research

• problems:fundingdistributed organisation"evaluating" motivation of primary school pupils