1st level COURSE 2022 -2023

Sofia Platform Code 76778

What is ABE?

ABE site Italy (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.net/it/eng) is an international training program for high school teachers coordinated by the EDC (Education Development Center) of Boston (USA) and supported by the AMGEN Foundation. In Italy, it has been organised since 2017 by ANISN (Associazione Nazionale Insegnanti di Scienze Naturali - National Association of Natural Sciences Teachers), together with, among others, the University of Naples "Federico II" and the IBBR (Istituto di Bioscienze e Biorisorse del CNR - CNR Bioscience and Bioresources Institute). ABE site Italy also takes advantage of the international cooperation with a solid network of 25 similar ABE sites, which are active in three continents and coordinated by prestigious institutions (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.com/where-we-are). In particular, ABE site Italy is twinned with ABE site Massachussets (USA) at Harvard University, and with ABE site France at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. In five years, ABE site Italy expanded to 12 regions, actively involving hundreds of teachers and thousands of students.

TRAINING COURSE

Target

70 High School teachers from Campania, Lazio, Apulia, Basilicata, Molise, Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo, Emilia Romagna, Sicily, Lombardy, Sardinia.

Training program

This is a free Italian-language course organised by ABE Italy. It is aimed at high school teachers living in the specified regions who have never taken part in ABE. The course will be carried out in blended mode and will consist of three phases:

• Phase 1: distance learning, with two-hour long webinars
• Phase 2: in presence, through lab experiments (ABE labs: cloning of red fluorescent protein) in an intensive course that will last two days and will happen in January and February 2023 at the teaching labs of the ABE site Italy partner research institutions.
• Phase 3: implementation with the students at school. ABE Italy will provide instruments (micropipettes, electrophoresis boxes, PCR) and reagents free of charge, for a period of time not to exceed 3 weeks, to carry out the lab activities with the students in the schools, either during school hours or outside school hours.

The three phases will also allow teachers to take part in the Italian ABE community (both in person and through online meetings); to take part in the international community; to be able to take part in local, national or international working groups; and to attend public payback and dissemination events.

In particular, phase 1 consists of a distance course comprising 5 meetings of two hours each, which will happen in the first and second week of December (5,6,7 and 12,13 December 2022), and it is structured with four kinds of alternating sessions: ABE labs (carried out using the LabXchange platform) in Italian; scientific talks; introduction to IBSE; alignment of the teaching program with the national curriculum; and experiences of veteran ABE teachers.

THE PARTICIPANT SELECTION WILL HAPPEN ON THE SOFIA PLATFORM, AND THE REQUIRED DOCUMENTS MUST BE SENT TO INFO.ABE@ANISN.IT  (APPLICATION AND SELF-DECLARATION; EXPRESSION OF INTEREST BY THE HEAD TEACHER).

THE DEADLINE TO SUBMIT THE APPLICATION IS NOVEMBER 20th, 2021. The outcome of the selection will be communicated to applicants by the December 1st, 2022.

For more information about ABE Italy, write to info.abe@anisn.it.