"Le développement résulte de la connaissance et de la compréhension qu’une société a d’elle-même et de son environnement ; puis de sa capacité à s’organiser pour relever les défis auxquels elle doit faire face."
Christophe BIAYS,
Président de DEFI
Definition:
Active learning is a teaching method that strives to more directly involve students in the learning process.
Students are learning through doing in fictive or real situations by using their skills that will evolve during the learning process
History of "Main à la Pâte" active learning
French expression to say getting involved and as equivalent could be "to pitch in" or "to get stuck in".
"Main à la Pâte" active learning aims to develop the sciences and technologies' learning in school.
In 1995 « Main à la Pâte » was born due to the lack of science learning in primary school.
Created by three french academicians Georges Charpak, Pierre Lena and Yves Quére, this active learning aims to implicate children in their sciences learning process in order to understand the necessity and its usefulness.
Example on the field :
My name is Fatao, i'm 10 and i'm living in Tsévié, 30km from Lomé capital city of Togo.
Every morning, i'm leaving the house at 6.30 a.m with Bilal my little brother, to go to school which is in an other district. At 7 a.m classes begin and this morning we start with sciences that i love because they are often funny.
When we enter in the classroom, the teacher arranged materials on the tables. With friends we are curious to know what the teacher will again ask us to do with that. We take place by groups auround the tables, then the teacher begins to explain us the lesson of the day : the consequences of deforestation.
In front of us there are two cut plastic bottles, one of them contains earth with rooted plants, the other only some earth. The teacher asks us to fill with water a small container and to pour the same quantity in each bottle. We have to observe and compare the quantity of water escaping from the opened necks. We note that when there are rooted plants in earth, water escapes slowly, a part of it stay in the earth. When there is no plantation, water escapes faster and moves the earth with it.
Thanks to this scientific experience i understood the dangers of deforestation. It's important to protect trees because they give us shadow and we can eat fruits, but also because their roots keep water and avoid landslides. When we see by ourselves the way the nature works, we better understand and we want to protect it.