Bulgarian Activities in the Project COSMOS: An Advanced Scientific Repository for Science Teaching and Learning

One of the main purposes of the European educational project COSMOS (cofunded by the European Commission under the program eContentplus), is to create an experimental laboratory for the school of tomorrow in order to improve the education in astronomy by expanding the resources for teaching and learning in schools and universities and by providing more challenging and authentic learning experiences for students. A large educational database was created as a result of the project activities made by 15 partner institutions. The unusual electronic ”library” offers to students and teachers unique educational resources: learning scenarios, images, presentations, videos and animations (most of them are impossible to produce in any scientific laboratory). It is freely accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Our poster presents the contribution of the Shumen university (the only partner from Bulgaria) in the project: uploading more than 12000 astronomical images in the COSMOS portal; creation of 45 learning scenarios; holding 5 teaching workshops at different places for more than 100 Bulgarian teachers to use the possibilities of the COSMOS portal (including creation of their own learning scenarios). Our analysis of the questionnaires filled-in by the participating teachers shows the necessity of such projects and workshops.