1st level COURSE 2023 -2024

Sofia Platform Code 87712

Che cosa è ABE?

ABE site Italy (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.net/it/eng) is an international training program that has been active in Italy since 2017, where it is organised by ANISN (Associazione Nazionale Insegnanti di Scienze Naturali - National Association of Natural Sciences Teachers), together with, among others, the University of Naples "Federico II", the IBBR (Istituto di Bioscienze e Biorisorse del CNR - CNR Bioscience and Bioresources Institute), the University of Camerino, and the Scuola Superiore Meridionale.

ABE site Italy also takes advantage of the international cooperation with a solid network of 27 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 Japan at the University of Tokyo, and with ABE site France at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

The ABE Italy structure consists of a Headquarter (HQ) in Naples, and 6 Distribution Centers (DC) in Milan, Camerino, Spoleto, Bari, Palermo, and Cagliari.

In six years, ABE site Italy expanded to 12 regions, actively involving hundreds of teachers and thousands of students.

Destinatari

70 High School teachers from Campania, Lazio, Apulia, Basilicata, Molise, Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo, Emilia Romagna, Sicily, Lombardy, Sardinia. 50 positions are reserved for Science teachers of ABE schools (where other teachers who have taken part in ABE work) and 20 positions are reserved for novice teachers of schools from these 12 regions that have never taken part in ABE before.

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 2024 at the teaching labs of the ABE site Italy partner research institutions. Locations: Naples: Dipartimento di Biologia, Università Federico II Camerino: Polo di Bioscienze, Università di Camerino; Milan: Labospace experimental laboratories. The full calendar is included below, and teachers from the 12 regions can choose the location that best suits them.
• 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 6 meetings of two hours each (5pm - 7pm), which will happen in the first and second week of December (4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14 December 2023), 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 experimental phase 2 will take place at various ABE site Italy partner institutions:

• Campania region: Naples, University of Naples Federico II
  • 15th and 16th January 2024
  • 17th and 18th January 2024
• Marche region: Camerino, University of Camerino
  • 5th and 6th February 2024
  • 8th and 9th February 2024
• Lombardy region: Milan, Labospace
  • 15th and 16th February 2024

Selection criteria (IT)

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, 2023. The outcome of the selection will be communicated to applicants by the December 1st, 2023.

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