The Multilingual and Multicultural Website for Science Education and Peace Pilot Project

The Multilingual and Multicultural Website for Science Education and Peace Pilot Project is an Israeli-Palestinian-French effort aiming to gain experience in the cooperative creation and operation of an expanding multilingual resource for science education for all ages.

The project's design, establishment and operation was carried out as a co-operative development process, involving numerous contributors from the three nations, coordinated and managed by Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization (IPSO), Al-Quds University (AQU), and La Cité des Sciences et de I'industrie, Paris (CSI). IPSO received the formal responsibility for the project in July 2007. Other participants include the French La Main à la Pâte (LAMAP), the Israeli Centre for Educational Technology (CET), The Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem (BSMJ), and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI).

The pilot website is a first of its kind between Palestinians and Israelis and it was based on the assumption that a Pilot phase is needed before a full fledged website is developed. The Pilot phase has three main goals:

• To continue through Israeli-Palestinian co-operation, the development of the Palestinian capacity-building in science education in general and more specifically, in curriculum design and in the development of web-based learning materials;

• To extend the cooperation between the Palestinians and the Israelis to include European partners The French Cité des Sciences et de I'industrie and the French La Main à la Pâte (LAMAP).

• To experimentally jointly develop internet Learning Units that could be implemented in all three educational systems: the Palestinian the Israeli and the French.

We have been fully successful in achieving all three goals and are presently looking forward to be able to expand this Multilingual and Multicultural Website for Science Education and Peace. (More)