Science Across the World in primary education in the Netherlands
During her teaching practice, student teacher Maaike ter Elst introduced 'Eating and Drinking' in the primary school Prinseschool in Enschede (Eatern part of the Netherlands). Deputy headmaster Paul Groot, Maaike's tutor in the school and Dutch Science Across the World coordinator Frans Carelsen lent a helping hand. 
Prinseschool in Enschede
The Prinseschool playground offers a varied sight during breaks and lessons outside with kids of around 25 nationalities. The mostly English speaking parents stay in the Netherlands from 6 months as a minimum till 4 years as a maximum as a student or as a teacher. The kids are taken care of by native speaker Zoë Price in three groups of the school's International Department, where English is the medium of communication and instruction. The whole group consists of 25 to 60 students, as part of the whole school population of 450 students, so Prinseschool is not a 'normal' local school. It is located in a beautiful building from 1913 in the centre of Enschede.
Every morning the 'international' students from all groups stay together for two hours in a well equipped classroom. The other hours of the day they join their own age groups.
Eating and drinking
Maaike ter Elst, student teacher at Teacher training College Edith Stein in Enschede, introduced the Science Across the World 
topic 'Eating and drinking' during her 40-days teaching practice period. Maaike started to search for a suitable exchange school in the database. She found Szkola Podstawowa from Janikowo in Poland, with students 11/12 years of age.Maaike and Zoë closely collaborated. They downloaded the Students' pages from the site. They introduced the topic with a group discussion and divided tasks. The students started with looking at their own daily meals and investigated diets in other groups in the school. They collected their data in an activity book and started connecting with Poland. Exciting! Apart from the research in the school the group worked on the questions in the Students' Pages 
to be able to fill in the Exchange Form. They found many answers on the Internet on questions about: 'Why food?', 'Eating habits' and 'Eating habits and health'. The students also analysed ingredients and additives in food. On the labels they found additives like ‘monosodium glutamate' and ‘added colourings’. This way they learned a lot about their daily food and they extended their vocabulary enormously. Extra activities
Maaike added extra practical activities. A teacher often can fit 
in part of the 'normal' curriculum and take advantage of the global context. 
The collected information was processed in different ways: tables, diagrams and posters. The students also arranged a small exhibition. After the group agreed on the answers on the questions they wrote them on the Exchange Form. Many pictures were taken to accompany the Exchange Form that was sent to Poland.
Exchange Form from Poland
Via email a nice Exchange Form with a lot of information from the Polish class arrived from 
Janikowo. The Exchange Form is now an example exchange form on the site. Through the information on the ‘exchange form’ the students learned about eating habits in another country. They loved the pictures showing cooking and research activities around the preparing of summer salads and a 'food guide pyramid'. The Science Across the World materials also provide discussion 
Questions like 'What do students around the world eat?'
To celebrate the end of the project a large buffet with contributions of students, parents and teachers was organised in the school!
Future
Science Across the World offers two topics for primary Education: 'Eating and drinking' and 'Plants and me'. Both can be downloaded from the site and apart from English, also translated in different other languages, so teachers in other countries can chose the language. Prinseschool only uses the English materials. During the project time other students in Prinseschool also liked to take part. They ran a small food project parallel to 'Eating and drinking'. Deputy headmaster Paul Groot plans to run three topics at least every year!
And Maaike? She graduated and as soon she gets a chance in a new school she will take part in Science Across the World again!
March 2007
Text: Lida Schoen, Paul Groot, Frans Carelsen
Pictures: Paul Groot, Polish school Szkola Podstawowa in Janikowo
