by Rachel Cohen, Eran Zafrani, & Anat Yarden (Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; WP4 coordinator)

The 1st round of the PARRISE Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programme in Israel was introduced to teachers at the 22nd National Conference of Biology Teachers, which took place at the Weizmann Institute of Science on June 23rd, 2016 via a presentation entitled: “Inquiry and civilian responsibility – how to combine themtogether?”

The PARRISE TPD programme in Israel was also presented at a Biology Teachers’ Seminar which was organized by the National Biology Teachers’ Center at the Weizmann Institute of Science on June 28th, 2016 (Figures 1 & 2). The aim of the conference and seminar sessions, which was attended by 100 people, was to give the opportunity to biology teachers in Israel to learn about the PARRISE project and its philosophy, focusing on the PARRISE activities in Israel during 2015-2016, and to engage them in an open discussion about science education in Israel.

In our presentation, we introduced SSIBL as the guiding framework of PARRISE and focused on three aspects: students’ questions, students’ inquiry and students’ implementation of activism (Figure 3). In addition, we presented two SSIBL modules that the local PARRISE 2016 teachers had developed and implemented. Finally, we demonstrated and outlined a new module promoting defibrillator devices for resuscitation in public places, following the true case of Meni Levi –an Israeli football player who collapsed during a game and suffered severe injuries.

We also met with Mrs. Irit Sadeh, Chief Inspector of High School Biology Education at the Israeli Ministry of Education, and Mrs. Sara Zawi, Chief Inspector of Environmental Science Education at the Israeli Ministry of Education, to explain the Israeli PARRISE project.

During the presentation, we highlighted the goals and philosophy of the PARRISE project, introduced the SSIBL framework and presented the main actions which were realized during the PARRISE 2016 TPD courses. Together with the two chief inspectors we are planning and conducting a new TPD course for PARRISE 2017 in Israel.