Ebook: Science Education: Models and Networking of Student Research Training under 21

This Article will give a brief overview of the Roundtable Discussion summarizing the most important and relevant comments and ideas raised during the discussion, mainly focusing on the ways and means how the aims and efforts of talent recruitment can be presented to the media and politicians.

Structuring information into knowledge is an important challenge for the 21^st century. The emergence of internet and the diffusion of collaborative practices provide new tools with which to build and share knowledge. Scientists are seeking efficient ways to get recognition and to diffuse their work while Wikipedia is seeking well grounded contributors to shape in-depth articles. Science publishing and Wikipedia are thus profoundly modifying access to knowledge and may provide suitable conditions for a reorganization of the academic landscape.

The goal of this chapter is to analyze the current U.S. approach to serving adolescents who are talented and interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The first section of this chapter reviews the status of national government investments in STEM and contrasts it with private and local funding. The second section addresses key problems we view as obstacles to meeting national goals. Next we describe policy proposals that might be implemented in the future. We close by posing a challenge to our colleagues, the response to which could assist us in restoring the appeal of STEM careers for our talented youth, and perhaps offer insights into the obstacles and opportunities that exist in our colleagues' own nations.

In applied politics, even the most obvious and plausible arguments, supported by scientific advice, might not be sufficient to outweigh pressures dictated by various interest groups, be they local, national or beyond. It is reality. Researchers, educators and the scientific community must face it. Regretfully for talented youth.

The Hungarian Research Student Association is ten years old, a lot of old research students are at the universities or getting a PhD. We though it is a time to form a movement, a network where we can bring them virtually or physically together. Before we started it, we examined the psychological background of an old a high school research student. We were interested in that the positive effect of the HRSA will remain or will disappear. It turned out that the need of the old research students at the university is different but the root of their problems is the same. We started to organize different programs to make an old student movement and also a place where the older students can have the same spiritual and scientific possibilities.

The American Junior Academy of Science (AJAS) is STEM's Fountain of Youth. The AJAS mission is to enable our nation's best high school science research students to be honored in the presence of and interact with the scientific community whose career paths they wish to follow. The spirit of AJAS is to develop lasting national and global networks of friendships with other similarly motivated future young scientists, as well as with the many scientists and leaders they meet. AJAS encourages inquiry-based science that a DIMISHING number of master science teachers are promoting in the America's education systems.

High school science education is a complex task, requiring an integrated approach by all institutions dealing with science education, including University. Here we presents the general organization and philosophy of Cus-Mi-Bio (Centre of the University and High School of Milan for Bioscience Education), together with the analysis of all initiatives developed for High school science teachers and students.

Students report a desire for research experience as the primary reason they seek a mentor. For many, however, the relationship with their mentor becomes the most significant and valued aspect of mentorship. 1245 student and mentor evaluations from 1995 through 2006 were analyzed to identify implications for program improvement. Results - sometimes surprising results - also revealed what matters most to students and mentors, and what makes a great mentor.

A Mentorship program for young scientists in Korea began in 2003. In these four years, mentorship programs ranging over 561 topics have been implemented each under the guidance of a mentors. An application process was created for the Research and Education (R & E) program. In addition, the results of the mentorship intervention and the responses of the participants have been analyzed. Since 2005 research internships abroad have been offered to the teachers of Science High Schools. Since then, 38 teachers have had the opportunity to do research within their major. Teachers are expected to guide students to prepare them for mentorship programs.

The importance of networking individual science comunication activities within a region has been observed and led to the formation of the Initiative Youth and Science in 2004 in the Metropolitan Region Rhein-Neckar. This network has attracted several partners in the meantime, including university and research insititutions, science centres as well as projects for gifted pupils. Some of them will be described in more detail below.

XLAB is an educational institution, which bridges the gap between high school teaching and university teaching. XLAB offers experimental courses in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Informatics for classes and individual students coming from all European countries and from all over the world. The students do intensive experimental work in very well equipped laboratories. Theoretical teaching by experienced scientists takes place in parallel to the experimental work.

From the analysis of feed-backs from participants, instructors, and teachers at the home schools as well as from non-reactive measures and evaluative studies the specific features of academic summer programmes are pointed out which are essential for their positive and sustaining effects.

In Catalonia, research projects in secondary schools have formed part of the curriculum for a number of years. Here we describe the activities of the University of Barcelona and the Barcelona Science Park aimed at helping secondary school students to develop a research project and their teachers to supervise the project. The relationships formed between students, their secondary school teachers and university teacher/researcher mentors appear to have a lasting positive effect. The research projects make a positive contribution to learning science and stimulate scientific vocation.

The Israeli Ministry of Education adopted a new policy to identify and nurture outstanding and gifted students excelling in different talent domains. The policy delineates the definitions of outstanding and gifted students, details ways of identifying them and proposes principles and frameworks for nurturing them. At present, we are implementing the first phase of the policy, the development of a network for identifying and nurturing outstanding students.

This paper describes in brief, the action plan that the Greek regional section of Euroscience has followed, during the last two years, for the promotion of applied geophysics in Greece. Focusing mainly on young children, the programme achieved to attract as well the interest of university students as that of teachers and to become one of the most popular scientific actions in Greece.

In the Society of our days there is a major increasing need of an in depth quality education in Science and Technology. Science school teaching should be generalised aiming not only the sound establishment of a “Science” culture in our societies but also to guarantee a steady basis for the improvement of Science and its technological applications. Urgent actions should be taken in this direction.