Study visit to Brundalen elementary school
As a part of the project activities, ten employees of the Elementary School “Mijat Stojanović” traveled to faraway Trondheim. The purpose of this trip was to visit our Project partner Brundalen elementary school and to acquire new knowledge and skills that will be useful in our future work.
We spent several days at Brundalen Elementary School – a school without a school bell attended by about 450 students. The Norwegian education system is quite different from ours, and the students of this school are very successful in many areas. During our stay at the school, we had the opportunity to meet the “Pink cowboys” team, winners of the Scandinavian First Lego League, and participants of the World Championship in Rio De Janeiro. In excellent English, the 12-year-olds presented to us their conceptual solution for the ecological and economic problem of sea pollution with containers from cargo ships. The students themselves contacted the managers of the cargo port, researchers who deal with the issue of cargo transportation, as well as sponsors who helped finance their trip.
At school, we also had the opportunity to attend some classes. In class, students analyze, compare, solve tasks independently and in groups, use computers independently to search for information, think critically and logically and come up with solutions. Another thing we learned in Trondheim is that “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes”, which was explained to us by our host, the director of the school Sten Frode Solvang, when we noticed that children were playing outdoors and going for walks even in the rain and the wind. Mikael Lyngstad, the city advisor for education, visited us at the school, explained to us the ways in which he cooperates with schools, and talked about curriculum development and the problems they face.
During our visit to Trondheim, our hosts organized a visit to the Vitensenteret (science center), where local schools send their gifted students and encourage them to take part in project activities, so once a week, instead of going to school, the students come to the science center. There, with expert guidance, they can participate in modeling and programming workshops, become young inventors, work on innovations, and propose architectural solutions. Students are assigned project tasks that are challenging for them, and by solving these tasks they connect different curricula, improve their own skills and develop creative and logical thinking. As part of the science center, we visited an interactive STEM exhibition and a planetarium, where we watched a film about the origin of the universe.
In addition to the “official” part of the visit, the hosts took us around the city to see all its sights. We returned from the trip full of impressions. We hope that this study visit was not only useful for us, but also for the hosts who, after our questions and comments, wondered why they practice certain things in that way. We hope that our evaluation helped them to see some positive things in their own practice that they may have taken for granted.
