27th NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC PRACTICAL CONFERENCE “NATURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION IN A COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL – 2021”: CONFERENCE REVIEW

Abstract

The scientific-practical conference “Natural Science Education in a Comprehensive School - 2021”, which has already become a tradition, was held in an unusual way, remotely (online). This format of the conference was determined by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, so the conference could not take place in the usual format for the second time. This time, the plenary session of the conference was truly international and extremely interesting. In total, four key reports were presented in plenary. It is fair to say that the plenary has 'united' different continents: Africa (presenter: Dr Angela James from South Africa), Latin America (Dr Solange Locatelli from Brazil), Europe (Dr Mihail Calalb from Moldova and Dr Malgorzata Nodzynska from Poland). It is also interesting that the plenary reports covered all three essential areas of science education - chemistry, physics, biology. The topics of the reports were various, mainly in various fields of science and technology education. It is important that the participants were active, there were intense discussions and sharing of experiences. All participants acknowledged that education in a pandemic environment is significantly restricted. This applies in particular to various non-formal education activities, or activities that take place outside the regular classroom (e.g. various project activities). Presentations were also made on the second day of the conference. Dr. Rita Makarskaitė-Petkevičienė (Vilnius University) moderated four presentations. Traditionally, on the second day of the conference, practical seminars were organized for all conference participants. A similar goal was set at this conference - to make all reports useful for all professionals at all levels of education. Most conference reports were presented in the form of articles and published in the conference proceedings. One can find full texts in the database at: https://oaji.net/journal-archive-stats.html?number=1984&year=2021&issue=18298 It is tentatively scheduled that the 28th Conference will take place on April 29-30, 2022, also remotely. Keywords: online platform, national conference, science education, science and technological education movement.