Physics students in Yeruham and neighboring towns will now have the opportunity to engage in research projects at The Yeruham Science Center as part of their Physics matriculation exam
Physics is a demanding subject which requires high quality and creative teaching in order to attract and retain student interest. The accepted way of teaching Physics in Israeli schools is however very traditional, focusing on ‘chalk, talk and drill’ pedagogy. This method is not very popular both among excelling science students seeking intellectual challenges, and among less motivated students, who need to receive more individual support from their teacher.
This is a nationwide phenomenon with implications that are more severe in the social and geographic periphery, where in many cases high quality teaching is scarce, the number of students is low, and laboratory equipment is lacking. Yeruham, a small development town of 8,000 citizens in Southern Israel, has been a paradigm example of this trend for many years, as the number of Science students and teachers diminished and classes were closed.
This reality is now changing since the establishment of a Science Center under the leadership of a highly talented teacher, Dr. Rachel Knoll. Today, the trend is being reversed as the Center attracts students from Yeruham and the surrounding towns, and has opened an advanced Physics track, which currently caters to 44 students in 11th and 12th grades.
The Yeruham Science Center will now expand this track and introduce a new component allowing students to complement their physics matriculation exam with a research project. Research projects will be supervised by a science teacher and consultant researchers from the adjacent Kamag Campus and the Institute for Desert Research at Sde Boker. The supervising teachers will meet at a weekly workshop to discuss their students’ projects, resulting questions, and best teaching methods. Over the course of one year, the Science Center aims to launch at least twenty 9th grade mini-research projects and twenty research projects for high-level Physics matriculation.