Friday Academy
Friday Academy
The program ‘Friday academy’, comprising of workshops and visits to exhibitions, companies and industry, is a successful model of inquiry-based learning and creativity that has been implemented in some Slovenian schools. The program makes youth and the society at large more sensible to changes and dynamics of modern society. Through work with artists and scientist, children and youngster are inspired to a more creative approach towards science and technology. They are assisted by tutors who encourage youth and children to create with their own hands (DIY principle – Do It Yourself), to cooperate and jointly tackle the tasks they haven’t mastered yet (DITO principle – Do It Together) and towards experiential learning (‘Hands On’ principle). Regular thematic workshops first introduce interesting stories and works from the field of contemporary research art to the participants. After that, they discover the characteristics of the technologies and the science that were used in these works of art. Innovative, creative and sometimes also unusual application of technologies inspires children and youngsters for research and creation. Content sets are composed as a whole but can also be interlinked. With such an education process, we also train children and youth to become young mentors and spread their knowledge and enthusiasm among peers. To expand such transfer of knowledge as much as possible, we developed a concept of peer-to-peer knowledge transfer, which is an upgrade of the model of inquiry-based learning and creativity.