EST

EST - Science & Technology Education

Impassioning the youth for science

To fight the widespread lack of interest toward science and technology studies among the youth and ignite a passion for science and technology in them, Fondazione Cariplo deployed EST Science & Technology Education, a project targeted at elementary and middle school children in Lombardy, one of Italy’s most advanced regions.

In this project the Foundation harnessed the scientific communication ability of Lombardy’s museums, in particular, two great Italian museums which are also true centers of excellence in spreading scientific and technology knowledge, the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology  and  Milan’s Civic Museum of Natural History. The other Foundation’s partners in this project have been Lombardy Regional Government and Education Department as well as other local science museums in  Lombardy. 

Project steps

The EST project was organized into two steps:

•     The first step (200-2005) entailed setting up new museum learning programs for school kids, teachers’ training, preparation of teaching material and concept testing with an initial group of 50 schools, followed by the assessment of results and the development of a model based on this first step of the project in view of rolling it out across Lombardy.
•     The second step (2006-2009) entailed rolling out the project to other Lombard schools and museums by selecting some of the schools and regional institutions that took part in step one and leveraging Lombardy’s network of science museums to involve other  schools and train their teachers.

 
Results

The project reached nearly 800 schools, 2,500 teachers, 50,000 students and 27 museums in Lombardy.

For more information visit the EST Project website at www.progettoest.it