The sciences are ever growing and competitive fields that are important for the growth and development of a country. Teaching our students the right materials, and instilling an appreciation for science is important to the advancement of science. That's why the UNESCO Global Micro-Science Project came to Belize. The project's goal is to give our educators a new way to engage their students in the sciences, and give them to skills to further their studies. We spoke to the people involved with the project about how it benefits Belize...
Orlando Medina, Science Curriculum Officer at Ministry of Education
"Today we have teachers from high schools country wide, we have representation from all the districts. They're getting familiar with what we call a micro science tool that they can use for the science, biology, chemistry, physics and integrates science. Basically it is like a laboratory that's in the form of a small kit. They have experiments that they are conducting using these little kits and then they are getting their results. We're just familiarizing them with it because it is a tool that they will be using in their classes, the kits."
Alex Courtenay, 7News
"And can you give us a little about the importance of microscience in places like Belize?"
Petal Jetoo, Regional Coordinator for Micro-Science
"It is important because like many other Caribbean countries we don't have fully equipped laboratories, all of our science teachers are not adequately trained. So the UNESCO micro science program comes as a package which tries training with the use of the kits and the provision of the chemicals, and the worksheets with questions so that students are engaged in the complete learning process but not only the students. If we're talking about inclusive learning and learning for life, and quality of education for our students we have to begin with providing that good quality of education and experience for our teachers, who are pivotal in delivering our education, and training our students, and microscience comes with that complete package. Training of teachers, implementation in schools, having the resources to do so. It's not simply about saying that you have to do, but providing the resources with which you will have to do so and also giving that kind of support in terms of feedback."
Rudolph Anthony, Secretary General, UNESCO Belize
"UNESCO is there to assist the country of Belize to see how we can further sciences to our young people in high school, and we place a lot of emphasis on young females. Because UNESCO is all about equality and justice, and we know that a lot of the females, in the world, you know they were locked out of sciences because of biases and all that - because of this men issue. So, we want to be equal, so we place a lot of emphasis on females, and getting the students really involved and interested into science and we want more of them."
The course ends tomorrow, and the teachers from each school will receive kits for them to take back and use in their classes. The UNESCO Global Micro-Science Project has been implemented mainly in Guyana, where it has had a positive effect on high school students' CSEC grades.
Email
Print