Make It Open

A project initiated and led by the Bloomfield Science Museum, submitted in response to a call for proposal by the European Union that targets the creation of new partnerships in local communities to foster improved science education for all citizens.*

The EU-funded Make it Open initiative aims to involve the community in promoting STEM learning (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to achieve the following goals:

  • Improve science literacy and boost the interest of students and their parents in STEM subjects.
  • Help schools become agents of community well-being.
  • Make maker-centered and citizen science pedagogies accessible to schools.
  • Establish open school hubs in schools that run open schooling activities in and with the community.

Make it Open adopts the concept of open schooling:

What is being taught? Teaching is organized around curriculum-based STEM subjects while linking STEM fields to other disciplines.

Where is this happening? Moving beyond the walls of the classroom to learn at home, in maker labs, parks, backyards, factories, and science museums.

Who teaches? In addition to school teachers, Make It Open encompasses instructors from informal learning environments, parents, experts from academia, industry, and civil institutions, and school graduates.

How is the learning done? Through a mix of informal instruction methods including excursions, surveys, contests, demonstrations, workshops, etc.

When does learning occur? Instruction hours are flexible, and not limited to school hours.

Who are the learners? School serves as a community learning hub for students’ families and other community members – children, adolescents, and adults. 

What for? To promote values such as fairness, connecting learning to the real world, and learning through making.

Make It Open develops open educational resources accessible to everyone in the education community.

Make It Open sets up 16 learning scenarios characterized by:

  • Connecting learners to the community: the community as a resource and opportunity for learning; a source for authentic and relevant challenges that learners can solve; promoting active citizenship among learners.
  • Learning through making: an opportunity to integrate STEM-related activities.
  • Building foundations for the future: connecting learners with experts from industry and academia.
  • Connecting to curriculum-based STEM subjects.
  • Supporting modularity and personalized learning.
  • Connecting to Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs).

The Open Schooling Navigator makes all content and resources available, user-friendly and interactive.

A Proof of Concept assessment tool.

MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) - an online course to train teachers and educators.

10 open schooling hubs in ten European countries that operate in schools with teachers, informal science educators, policy makers, researchers and industry professionals.

There are six partners involved in Make it Open - science museums, science centers, and research and development institutions in Israel, the Netherlands, Poland, the UK, Belgium, and the US; as well as six third-party participants from Hungary, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, Spain, and Romania.

* Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (H2020-SwafS-2019) under the grant agreement No. 872106.