EAFIT Children’s University is an Informal Education and Science Engagement program designed to bring academia and research closer to other audiences and to encourage curiosity, create active learning experiences as well as to promote intellectual enjoyment and foster critical thinking among children.
The program proposes to deal with scientific concepts in an accessible way without sacrificing scientific rigor. Because of that, the methodology of the program is based on asking questions, discussing a problem, experimenting,and playing. In each workshop, a suggested question is posed that is related to one or several knowledge areas. Children participate in different activities that involve the use of their minds and bodies to solve the question and thereby awaken their curiosity and interest. Guest experts and workshop assistants guide participants through the activities and facilitate the dialogue and interaction with the children.
Region
Latin America & The Caribbean
location
Carrera 49, Medellín, Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
Since its foundation in 2005, ECU has engaged 6,240 children and young people, 530 schoolteachers, 480 undergraduate students, 371 schools and 210 researchers in long-term science-based formative processes, besides the more than 21,000 people in short-duration initiatives. Workshops conducted on-campus have been a living lab which have enabled ECU to apply its hands-on methodology off-campus, such as:
The IBSME projects, developed for and with the local and national government and the private sector, including a model of city council with young people, inter-sectoral debate sessions to understand problems of national concern and school clubs for engagement with maths;
Designing and implementing in-territory community engagement strategies with researchers;
Promoting critical understanding of science through public events such as the Medellin Book Festival, the Medellin Science Fair and the Early Childhood Festival Buen Comienzo. The science contents projects of ECU comprise radio broadcasts, an annual printed publication, science stories booklets, manifestos by children, among others.
What This Organisation Is Looking for
Inspired by curiosity and amazement as the origin of knowledge, the relevance of scientific knowledge in society, and the plurality of thoughts, perspectives and visions of the world, we aspire to be a program that:
Impacts the research system with reflections and actions that allow children and young people to build closer relationships with science and education.
Contributes in the analysis and search for solutions to the social problems faced by Colombian children.
Generates platforms that allow greater interaction of different social spheres with results and debates from scientific knowledge.
Produces knowledge-based reflection and research of its own practice.
Replicates its model in multiple educational spaces and generates a local and Latin American movement with its own identity, according to the needs and interests of the context.
Ana Maria Londoño Rivera is a Product Design Engineer. She received a Master’s Degree in Humanistic Studies, with an emphasis in Language Studies from EAFIT University in Columbia. She has been part of the Children’s University since its origin in 2005. She currently leads the Children’s University program at EAFIT University and advises on issues of Science Engagement. She has been involved in the development of science communication strategies for children, youth, schoolteachers, and university professors, as well as in projects to measure the impact of this type of topics in Medellin and in Colombia.
