This document outlines a project to create physics and astronomy videos for parents of primary school children. It discusses how parents can help improve their children's learning and interest in science. The project aims to make parents aware of the importance of science and how they can support their children's learning through hands-on activities. Videos of simple, low-cost activities will be created and available online for parents to do at home with their children. Parents will also receive training at schools. The project aims to evaluate the impact on both parents and children through questionnaires, observation, and interviews.

1. Physics and
Astronomy videos for
parents of children at
primary school
José GONÇALVES, Paulo Simeão CARVALHO, Luciano MEDEIROS JR

2. why do parents matter?

3. science and curriculum
Science in school’s curriculum:
General Sciences (5th and 6th grades)
Natural Science + Physics and Chemistry (7th, 8th and 9th grades)
Biology and Geology + Physics and Chemistry (some courses, 10th, 11th and 12th grades)
So, science projects started in Primary Education (1st, 2nd, 3th and 4th grades) (Kallery et al
2009; Ferreira and Dias, 2018) are made by science teachers.

4. parents
● 'good parenting at home' has a significant positive effect on children's performance
and adjustment (Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003).
● they are important to the acquisition of mathematical and scientific skills, and
produces a great impact on the development of children's own perceptions of self-
competence (Jacobs and Bleeker, 2004).
● There is a greater retention of scientific information by the children when they talk
about the subjects addressed in the classroom with their parents, even when they do
not have a specific scientific knowledge (Kelly, 2016).

5. parents
Several authors (Nakahara et al, 2006; Thomas and
Strunk, 2017; Halim et al, 2018) point out and describe
the importance of parents to improve their children’s
learning and develop skills, as well as the influence
they have on increasing interest in sciences.

6. objective
This project aims to raise the awareness of parents about the importance of science in
people’s life and how they can help to develop proactive attitudes towards science in
young people.
Although a few parents feel very confident in their ability to support students in learning
science, we want to instill the idea that science is not dogmatic but questionable, through
active processes that include exploring, observing, presenting plausible ideas, testing,
collecting data, concluding and proposing solutions to problems (Vahey et al, 2019).

7. Parents as science
disseminators

8. FisAstEE
The project intends to disclose
Physics and Astronomy
activities for parents of children
in primary School

9. practical activities
The activities will be available online in a video format.
The guidance video can assure that parents can conduct the activity at home with their
children. Each activity is hands-on, fun and low-cost.
Parents will be trained at schools.
There will be a simple explanation at the end of each video about the science behind the
experiment.

10. sample
This sample
activity can be
made at home,
with low cost
materials.

11. evaluation

12. evaluation
We intend to evaluate the resources to measure the impact of this kind of dissemination in
parents and children.
We will evaluate through:
➔ Questionnaires
○ before and after each video
○ in training sessions
➔ Observation in training sessions
➔ Interviews to parents and children

13. Thank You
José Gonçalves (UPorto, PT)
Paulo Simeão Carvalho (UPorto, PT)
Luciano G. de Medeiros Jr. (UFF, BR)