Turku University visit

Veli-Matti Vesterinen, Jarkko Lemminpaa and I at

the Turku university chemistry lab.

Turku University.  Luma Center activity for High School Cemistry students. Thank you for Jarkko Lemminpää who had time to meet with me and talk about the Luma Center activities.  The center had recently received a funding of €150,000 to develop curriculum for materials science, how youth express science and how to make it interesting. The center developed comic books, on seasons and discussed the themes with students to see the reactions and effects on learning science. 
The center likes to do water chemistry.   They either take equipment and materials to schools so that the teacher can perform the experiments with students or the students come to university to perform the experiments. Usually the high schools students come by themselves or near-by elementary kids walk with their teachers. They may also take a public transportation.

During the week I visited the university, the schools had so called ‘get to know a workspace’ week. Junior High students had t find something to do with adults. The here was a young boy from a junior high and he followed Jarkko to observe University life. He also participated with the high school students in the lab exercise.

The Luma center also organizes science birthdays, cost €150 per party. Kids do chemistry experiments.

Luma center also organizes summer camps.. Turku is organizing one in Tuorela Science center. 6 camps for 8-10 year olds. Camp also for 10-13 year olds which is research based. Very little teaching, Just experimenting. Cost is $130. Teacher trainees are running these camps, mostly physics with astronomy o biology with history. TTS group, hand held.  University gives free Vernier for rent to schools. All the operating instructions are online, for example to measure oxygen and how it relates to biology, chemistry and physics. Links to all the disciplines are online, blood pressure which links to other disciplines.

Chemical storage at the chemistry lab

 All the high schools take measurement course.

To get to teaching in Physics, you need to get grades 9 or 10 in high school, you take the same courses in physics as other physics students but then you need to take the pedagogical classes on physics. You need a group interview and an individual interview. There are 1-2 university professors and one to two teachers from a training schools in the interview. Usually one out of 3 passes the exam.

Once you complete the courses you need to do 50 hours of teaching in teacher training schools and also follow other teachers in training. Teacher mentors give feedback right after the teaching. They usually ask you to reflect on your teaching.

Life science starts at elementary school, physics and chemistry at 5^th grade.

During the visit, students from a local high school came to perform chemistry lab on isolating caffeine from energy drinks.  The teacher was Veli Matti Vesterinen, Students were divided into small groups. 2 boys and 7 girls. After extraction, they performed a dilution and a spectrophotometer readings to determine the caffeine concentration.

These can be found in chemistry labs

Students performing experiments

Separation of caffein from water

Students at work

Measuring atomic spectra with a spectrophotometer.