Horizons in Physics Education
 HOPE is effectively the sixth thematic network in physics education in a series of networks beginning in 1996 with the European Physics Education Network (EUPEN).
With an overall aim of enhancing the impact of physics within Europe and its visibility in society, the network will research and share good practice within four themes:
- the factors influencing young people to choose to study physics;
- physics graduates’ competences that enable them to contribute to the new needs of the European economy and society;
- the effectiveness and attractiveness of physics teaching in Europe’s university physics departments and their competitiveness in the global student market;
- strategies for increasing the supply of well-trained physics school teachers and for developing links between university physics departments and the teaching of physics in schools.
In the July edition of the HOPE newsletter, a focus is done on few examples of practices contributing to the general objectives of HOPE Network
More information on the network here.
More good practices among partners here.
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Promoting the interest in physics through cooperation activities between university and schools
 By S. M. Gomez Puente Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
In 2011 the Applied Physics department at the Eindhoven University of Technology made a clear choice to strengthen the cooperation between the university and the schools. In order to do that a vision on how to position teaching physics in the world of the stu- dents was defined with some specific features: small-sized education, and therefore, personalized; offering carrire perspective by educating students in the so-called high-tech region; providing opportunities for further fundamental research together with an ample spec- trum of subjects to conduct applied research; promoting a hands-on and independent research-oriented in the master study programs.
Within this framework and in order to transform this vision in practical schemes, the Applied Physics department has developed a set of a activities to strengthen the coop- eration between the university and the school. These activities are threefold:
- To promote the interest on the technical application of natural sciences and physics among young students;
- To upgrade the secondary physic teachers knowledge on physic-related themes; To in- spire young students to study physics at the Applied Physics ;
Demonstration within the programme
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University satellite as an attraction for students
 By Vladislav Veniamin Pustynski from Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
One of the challenges of the contemporary teaching is to give students a possibility to practically apply their knowledge while they continue university studies. A special challenge for physics studies is to increase attractiveness of this field for students having a wide choice of other fields that are generally considered to be simpler. Aerospace engineering is the area of knowledge that is, on one hand, is quite attractive for students and, on the other hand, is closely related to physics and other natural and technical sciences. Thus it may serve as a good start for those who would like to dedicate themselves to science and engineering. It also offers students a lot of opportunities to acquire practical skills during their studies. In autumn 2014, a student nanosatellite program was started in Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia (TUT). The main goals of the program are to create a space technology knowledge center in TUT and to offer students an opportunity to acquire practical skills under the guidance of academic supervisors.
The Department of Physics was one of the initiators of the satellite program. This is an innovative way to increase attractiveness of physical studies, since student participants feel their important role in creation of a new engineering branch in Estonia. The satellite will be build following the CubeSat standards. Its principle payload is a camera for Earth imaging in RGB and IR at medium resolution. A number of additional on-board experiments are planned. Various University departments are responsible for subsystems of the satellite. The launch is planned for the year 2017 or later. The Department of Physics is responsible for the power subsystem, including photovoltaic elements, battery, and power management. Orbital planning tasks are also within the scope of the Department.
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DIATIC (continuation)
At the same time, all the designed DIATIC materials have some common features:
(1) a physics-in-context approach, which allows students to perceive physics topics as something meaningful for their life;
(2) the use of ICT for promoting inquiry and modeling with students (data-loggers, simulations, etc.);
(3) the aim to promote students’ scientific competences (to explain phenomen scientifically, to evaluate and design scientific inquiry, interpret data, etc.), and to provide tools for teachers for evaluating these competences.
Víctor López will present UAB initiative during the next HOPE forum in Constanta.
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HOPE annual forum 7 - 10 September 2016 Constanța (Romania)
 The third annual Hope forum is organized by University of Bucharest in partnership with Constanta Maritime University and will be held in Constanța, on the Black Sea coast. The forum will start on Wednesday, 7th of September, at 18h00 with welcome and introduction of the forum activities and will end on Saturday, the 10th, at 12h00.
The objective of the forum is twofold, it will focus on the activities of the WG4 on the Improvements in the Training and Supply of Physics School Teachers and it will present the results obtained with the 3 others working groups on :
Inspiring the young to study physics
New Competences for Physics Graduates, Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Improvements in Physics Teaching: Meeting Future Global Challenges in Physics Higher Education
European overviews, perspectives and recommendations in the topics studied, will be presented to the participants.
More details on the forum programme here
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Promoting the interest in physics (continuation)
- To promote the interest of the students on the application of physics in technology some initiatives are developed such as Eureka!Cup, competition-based projects for secondary students. Having in mind societal challenges, e.g. water management, energy or space exploration, students are to propose solutions to problems formulated by the industry or research institutes. With regards to the support to the secondary physic teachers, the Bta Black Belt program is geared to enhance secondary education physic teachers’ knowl- edge and skills. Through a 6-meeting lecture program refresh the university teachers and researchers the knowledge of high school teachers by showing current developments in the use of the theoretical base of physics in the experimental application and in the translation of those insights into education.
The poster of the initiative presented at HOPE forum in Helsinki in 2014 is found here.
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CERN Entrepreneurship Meet-up
 By Vetle Nilsen from CERN (Transfer Knowledge Officer)
Starting in March 2015 the Knowledge Transfer group at CERN has been arranging a very low threshold entrepreneurship meet-up for staff, students and users at CERN. These informal meetings have an overarching topic, sometimes introduced by external guest speakers, other times by CERN people with extensive knowledge on a specific subject. These low threshold meetings have in a short time attracted quite a few people with the final session of the year attracting 60 people to watch members of the meet-up present their business ideas. In addition the meet-up has a mailing list now counting around 120 people. The most interesting thing about the meet-up is the relative low effort compared to the high interested and potential output.
Slides of the presentation at Coimbra HOPE forum in 2015 here. More on the initiative here.
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DIATIC: In-service physics teachers training through a community of practice about the design of teaching materials
 Víctor López, Univer-sitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
DIATIC (the acronym of “Design and application of digital activities”), is a community of practice that includes in-service secondary school physics teachers and science education researchers. The 30 members of this community of practice meet every month in Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), with the main purpose of designing teaching materials for their secondary school students. In DIATIC meetings, participants share ideas about how to design teaching materials that they will later apply in their schools, and they also provide feedback about those materials that have been previously designed and applied in schools. This process allows producing several iterative improvements in the designed materials, always based on empirical evidence.
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University satellite (continuation)
Promotional campaign was organized within the Department to attract students, and a group of 5 students and 3 supervisors was formed (and more students are expected to join the project in the following years). The students have to accomplish the following tasks: 1) task planning; 2) participation in design works; 3) selection of off-the-shelf components; 4) correspondence with suppliers; 5) design presentations; etc. Students get additional credit points as a reward for their work. All works are performed in active collaboration with other TUT departments that are responsible for other subsystems. By September 2015, the project has passed the Preliminary Design Review stage.
Poster presented at the HOPE forum in Coimbra in 2015 here.
More information on TUT – Mektory nano-satellite program here.
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HOPE related events
 
GIREP Seminar : 30th Aug – 3rd September 2015, Krakow, Poland
HOPE activities will be represented by HOPE representatives.
HOPE was present at the Second World Conference on Physics Education in Sao Paolo 10-15 July 2016, with two posters presented by Marisa Michelini.
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