Summit Information

The first annual Copernicus Science Education Summit took place on February 20, 2007 at the Mission Inn, Riverside, CA. The event brought together about 200 K-12 educators and administrators, higher education faculty, business and community leaders to discuss the issues affecting the state of science education in the region and throughout the country. After listening to inspiring keynote speeches from 2003 National Teacher of the Year, Chauncey Veatch, and NASA Astronaut, Kathryn Sullivan, attendees were invited to discuss the issues they deemed most critical in small breakout discussion groups. The topics discussed included: How do we create more time to teach science to all students?; How do we get useful professional development focused on science and technology?; How can we practice effective inquiry-based learning in science?; and How do we help develop policy supportive of effective science education?

The purpose of the Science Education Summit is to actively engage educators and the community in working together to come up with effective ways to improve science education. The theme for this year’s summit, “Partnering for Success in Science and Technology Education”, embodies the need for collaboration among all members of the community in order to create long-term and sustainable solutions to fulfill the need for high quality science education.

The Copernicus Project aims to build on the success from the 2007 summit. In addition to developing a monograph based on the ideas generated at this year’s summit, the Copernicus Project will continue to provide a forum for our community to become engaged in our efforts to improve science education. Please visit our weblog to share your thoughts with our community. Also, please visit this webpage in early 2008 for information regarding the next Copernicus Science Education Summit.

• Summit Pictures
  
• Weblog
  
• Summit program (pdf file)