SALTDAL / NORWAY: Dragefossen AS and Nexans AS will provide Saltdal's children and young people with a practical and fun science-learning opportunity with the Norwegian Mobile Newton Room.
Schools use the Newton Room to teach STEM-based classes until the end of the school year. During holidays and the summer vacation, kindergarteners and summer camps get the opportunity to visit the room.
The room was officially opened on June 1st with representatives from the schools, the municipality, the business community, and FIRST Scandinavia present.
Feeling of mastery
“As a cornerstone company in Saltdal, we want to contribute to good conditions for the academic development of children and young people in our community. We are especially pleased to collaborate with FIRST Scandinavia to be able to offer the Newton Concept to children and young people at the schools in Saltdal,” says Karl Peter Johansen from Nexans.
He believes that combining an attractive learning environment with high academic content can make science both become more exciting and provide a feeling of mastery that students can bring with them to other subjects as well.
“The Newton concept provides good learning experiences and high learning outcomes, and is increasingly used in many municipalities both at home and abroad,” Johansen says.
Teachers in action
In June, students from primary and secondary school in Saltdal will participate in practical full-day teaching in mathematics and science until the start of summer vacation. The oldest kindergarteners will get to experience the Newton Concept through programming that teaches the life cycle of bumblebees as a way to understand the algorithmic mechanisms of robots.
Inside the Mobile Newton Room, teacher Børge Larsen talks to students from 9th grade at Rognan Ungdomsskole.
“Today, we will teach you the Newton module “We explore energy!” You will build a course with plastic pipes, and the course will contain a loop.”
Børge Larsen, together with Tobias Testad, will teach Saltdal's students using the mobile Newton Room throughout the next weeks.
"It is children and young people who will run the companies and the development here in Saltdal in a few years”
Truls Paulsen, Dragefossen
Collaboration on the workforce of the future
“We have always focused on knowledge. We believe that facilitating people's curiosity is one of the main factors in the positive development of both society and business. With the Mobile Newton Room, we want to create a good experience for Saltdal's children and young people that will also be linked to competence. It is children and young people who will run the companies and the development here in Saltdal in a few years,” says Truls Paulsen, the representative from Dragefossen AS.
Dragefossen and Nexans have worked together for several years to make it easier for young people in the muncipality to understand how important and fun science and technology can be.
“We are actually incredibly lucky to have a business community that is genuinely interested in children and young people becoming interested in science,” says Stein Ole Rølvik, the municipal director in Saltdal.
“It is incredibly fun to be allowed to work practically, and we see that the students enjoy themselves"
Børge Larsen, Newton Teacher
Want a permanent Newton Room in Saltdal
“We hope the experiences students and teachers get by using the Mobile Newton room in the coming weeks are positive, and that they can be the start of a process to establish a permanent Newton room in Saltdal. With all the opportunities that lie ahead of us in the region, we need this as a business community, and we also believe it can contribute to a positive societal development, and a more exciting and educational school life for children, young people, and teachers,” says Karl Peter Johansen from Nexans AS.
Newton teachers Tobias and Børge love this way of teaching.
“It is incredibly fun to be allowed to work practically, and we see that the students enjoy themselves. For us as teachers, it is good to see the students work with this because we get to see them in a new and different way than we do in the classroom, which is great,” they conclude.
