Vocational acqusition of STEM teachers in cern workshops

Abstract

Louis De Broglie suggested the building of atomic physics laboratory in European Culture Conference that was held on 9th December 1949 in order to provide the previous achievement and dynamism to Europe in the fundamental sciences after the World War II. Isidor Rabi also suggested the building of a regional laboratory in 5th UNESCO Conference which was held in Florence, 1950 in order to develop the international scientific cooperation. Eleven countries decided to establish a European Council for Nuclear Research in Paris, 1951. Establishing treaty was signed by 12 countries in 1953. Approvals from the parliaments of Denmark, France, West Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and Yugoslavia were completed on 29th September 1954, and CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research” was established (CERN, 2016). Today, CERN, having 21 members and 4.000 researchers, is the largest accelerator and research laboratory of the world, and is the center of excellence that provides opportunity to develop numerous technological products as well as many scientific discoveries. Innovations, which facilitate our lives from health to communication, energy to material science, security to food sector in every field, emerge through technological devices and systems such as particle accelerators and detectors that are developed by and used in CERN. There are full-scale experiments which are maintained, renovated or at the construction phase today as always being, or designed for future in CERN that is the biggest international scientific and technologic corporation organization of the world (Ankara University, 2016a). The science of physics goes far beyond Newton and Einstein and the particle physics is the future’s scientific field. In particular, the inventions, used in the diagnosis-purposed devices in medicine, indicate a new future. For this reason, our teachers should always upgrade their knowledge and should be ready for educating the 21st Century’s students. Turkey officially participated in CERN in 2014, and right after, the teacher Workshops were organized. Totally 229 teachers participated to six workshops that have been held in CERN where 150 Turks at PhD, post-doctorate degrees and executing the research from Turkish and foreign universities worked until today. In this article, the professional knowledge and experience acquisitions of teachers who attended the workshops in CERN laboratories on the base of innovation, entrepreneurship and technology in education, dissemination of knowledge by the teachers to other schools, colleagues, policy-makers and students when they come back to school. The article finalizes what should be done in this field for advance development.