Talking science in Italy
An early morning flight from London.
My aeroplane to Rome
A drive from Rome through southern Italy
A chance to look at the lovely Italian countryside from the back of the new Alfa Romeo.
The destination – Benevento
Sunset over Benevento
The reason for my visit? A national convention on Education. A growing number of schools in Italy are implementing Content and Language Integrated Learning programmes (CLIL) in which they are teaching maths and science to 11 to 14 year olds in English. As my Checkpoint Science series has been proving popular around the world and is published in English, I was invited by Hodder Education to make a presentation of the books and give a talk on how the Checkpoint books can be used for curriculum development to address the objectives of CLIL and help teachers prepare their students for the Cambridge International Examination Checkpoint Science tests.
Promoting the convention
The audience of teachers from all over Italy.
The audience of teachers from all over Italy.
I prepared my talk following the advice given in Chris Anderson’s TED Talks The official guide to public speaking which I found most helpful.
In my talk I asked the teachers to consider the ideas and science facts that the students bring with them from primary school and use them to help the students settle into secondary school, then demonstrated how the books could be integrated to prepare for examinations, develop a thorough understanding of Scientific Enquiry and help the students to become scientifically literate, by which I mean that they build up a knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts,which as adults they can use in rational decision making on science based issues which will affect our future world.
After my talk I joined Gill (International Schools Manager) and Taran (Agent for Hodder Education in Italy) on the stand…
Caption Taran and Gill on the Hodder Education International stand.
… to further explain how the books could be used to meet the requirements of individual schools.
Discussing the presentation of the science content of the books.
Discovering how the books can be integrated.
At the end of the convention Taran whisked me back to Rome in the Alfa and Gill made sure that I got on the correct plane. I would like to thank them both for looking after me so well on my first trip abroad to talk about science and my books.
Teachers in Italy can find out more information about my books from Mr Taran Arrigo while teachers everywhere can find out more information at hoddereducation.co.uk or in the films on my website or by contacting me by email.
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