The Space Awareness and PLATON projects organise the MARS MISSION Summer School 2017 for teachers, from 2-7 July 2017 in Marathon, Greece. The Summer School provides educators with simple tips and advice that can help them to teach topics related to space science in schools. Participation in this course can be funded by the Erasmus+ Programme (Key Action 1, Mobility project for school education staff).

The MARS MISSION course is organized in the context of the PLATON and the Space Awareness projects. Its main objective is to introduce to teachers learning methods that have demonstrably engaged young children in science in the long term and inspire them towards science and space related career paths. More specifically the summer school aims to:

- Introduce to teachers the inquiry teaching approach as a whole but, most importantly, also as a set stand-alone inquiry components which they can make use of progressively as a series of small adaptations. 

- Promote the interdisciplinary teaching of the natural sciences by presenting and making use of the "Big Ideas of Science" organization scheme for concepts and principles that goes beyond traditional curriculum organization and allows students to identify the connections between what they learn in different disciplines as well as to everyday life. 

- Promote collaboration between teachers of the same school unit through a coherent and well structured framework.

- Provide participants with training on teaching strategies that will allow them to manage diverse classrooms and promote gender balance.

- Present to teachers ICT tools apt for use in the science classroom.

- Facilitate teachers in introducing to their students space related careers and facilitate them developing the key skills involved through playful and engaging activities tailored to the school curricula.

- Acquaint participants with activities on contemporary space related subjects and showcase how they can be used in the science classroom.

The course will also strengthen its social cohesive and pan-European dimension by inviting participants to be part of a community of practice that will allow them to exchange and share ideas, experiences, concerns and educational resources with fellow teachers across Europe and introduce them to on-line learning repositories, portals and educational metadata.

The repertoire of resources and tools and activities that will be presented in combination with the hands-on and minds-on activities will facilitate the participants in learning how to deploy and integrate them in their school environment and everyday science teaching practice and also how to contribute their own work into educational repositories and share it within a European community of practice. 

How to Apply for Funding

Several places are allocated for science teachers who would like to participate in the course and can apply for an Erasmus+ grant that covers all travel and lodging costs and fees. The deadline for applying to this funding is 2 February 2017, 12:00 Brussels time.

The steps to follow to apply for an Erasmus+ (School Education Staff Mobility) grant are:

1. First contact us to express your interest in one of our courses and if you need assistance with the application procedure. By doing so we will reserve places for your school/organisation on the courses of your interest 

2. Register your school/organisation on the European Commission Authentication Service (ECAS), if not already registered

3. Log in to the Participant Portal with your ECAS account details and register your organisation on the Unique Registration Facility (URF) to obtain your unique Participant Identification Code (PIC), if not already registered. The European Commission has produced a Participant Portal User Manual to help guide you through the process of registering on the portal. You may seek further assistance on this by contacting your National Agency

4. Download the application form for "School education staff mobility" of the Erasmus+ Programme from the website of your National Agency.

5. You will receive our application assistance form, giving useful guidelines on how to fill it in according to the Erasmus+ Programme Guide

6. Fill in and submit the application form to your National Agency. The deadline is 2 February 2017, 12:00 (noon) Brussels time

7. Do not forget to inform us as soon as you get notified from your National Agency whether your grant application is accepted or rejected

For more information, visit the Summer School website.