SiS Catalyst: Report on internships
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The aim of SiS Catalyst Internship Programme is to provide an alternative opportunity to students in Europe for gaining valuable hands-on experience and personal development while staying focused on the project main area of intervention: children as change agents in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) teaching and learning. In the first half of the project implementation the project partners identified the following priority areas to be addressed:
- Engaging children in SiS Catalyst activities in a university
- A university taking SiS Catalyst activities to children in a rural context
- A university taking SiS Catalyst activities to children in an urban context
- A university taking SiSCatalyst activities to children through schools
- SiS Catalyst activities for children delivered in a theatre
- Museum based delivery of SiS Catalyst activities for children
- Delivering SiS Catalyst activities for children through Festivals
- Delivering SiS Catalyst activities for children through Media
From the end of 2012 until September 2014 The National Unions of Students in Europe (ESIB/ESU) took the leadership in development and implementation of SiS Catalyst Internship Programme, supported by the coordinator and Mentoring Associates. The first part of this deliverable includes guidelines for Hosting Organizations Internships of science and society activities.
During the preparation phase ESU produced Guidelines for internships taking into account the students’ view captured in previously contacted survey. The document has been used by the hosting organizations (HOs) to prepare their Expressions of Interest
to host interns to work on projects linked to SiS Catalyst main priority areas. A final step in this phase was the selection of students, facilitated by ESU and done by independent experts from the Mentoring Associates.
Overall, three rounds of recruiting hosting organizations and students were launched. After each round, the process was improved using the feedback from each previous round.
The second part of the deliverable is focused on the Reports delivered both by the HOs and the Interns who participated the Internship programme funded by the SIS Catalyst project.
The result is encouraging with regard to the experiences of both the students and the hosting organizations. With the financial support from the project and sponsors, twelve students from Europe participated in eight internship projects on four continents.
