Project Organized and Problem Based Learning (POPBL) is a “teaching” style which activates pupils to learn instead of listen. The concept of the problem based learning (PBL) component is to integrate the „real life“ learning process of human beings into the teaching process. The project organized component (PO) adds elements of everyday working methods used particularly in the profession of technology, thus emphasizing the real life component of PBL.

The basic ideas of POPBL can be deduced from a phenomenological approach in science teaching, which concentrates on the world observed and experienced by pupils. Starting from Fechner and Mach (“Psychophysik”, sensationalism) and their scientific successors, a project oriented teaching integrates the view of the surrounding world - as it is constructed by the pupils in their pre-science experience - with new scientific experiences introduced by problem based learning at school.

Often scientific language barriers and other scientific obstacles hinder children and students in making any efforts to attain such knowledge. “Scientific culture” is not attractive because it seems so different from what a child feels to have observed and to have competencies in. Successful school science learning however enables trust in personal competencies and leads to a (re-)construction of pre-science experiences as a key element of scientific enculturation. Thus pupils (and students) become able to understand science and will become interested in it.

POPBL was chosen as a method of enabling individual and competence-oriented learning since this teaching form allows teachers and pupils to have individual access to the teaching and learning process, thus taking into consideration that the requirements of pupils of different achievement levels and different levels of interest in science will be met. This eases the access of pupils to science subjects and takes care of potential gender differences.

One constituting element of POPBL teaching (see Figure 1) is the starting problem that interests pupils and depends obviously on the country, age group and school type. This problem causes pupils to ask (inquire) after appropriate science knowledge and integrates their everyday experience into science lessons.

After being presented with the starting problem (for all steps see Figure 2), a class is divided into smaller groups who investigate certain aspects within this problem, which is to be solved by individual pupils within the project group.

In the next step within the POPBL process, the pupils work on their problem by asking and inquiring from teachers, internet, books, parents, experts and other information sources to reach a solution.<s> </s>

The concept of self-efficacy explains the increase of interest in science subjects using this teaching method: POPBL learning enables pupils to become scientifically and technically literate, and opens visible results to them: Pupils therefore obtain the necessary self confidence to succeed in science. They experience that they are able to influence (“control”) their outcomes in science subjects if they dedicate themselves to science problems encountered in their daily lifes. This concept is discussed in particular for girls and science teaching.

POPBL allows pupils to acquire knowledge not only by listening to teachers and understanding (or not understanding) the content, but also by actively experiencing the content and the suitable learning method themselves, by discussing, exercising, inquiring and thus finding their own individual access to scientific problems. This develops additional social and in particular communication skills, but also extra qualifications such as the ability to organize themselves and to work in groups. This ability is highly relevant to labour market and to successful studies at universities.

POPBL teaching applied within this project was developed by Aalborg University for their university students. This method then spread to other universities (including the universities participating in the project) and to some Danish schools. In contrast to “traditional” science teaching in which the teacher begins with theory, POPBL starts with (pupil) experience and proceeds to theory building (see Figure 3), thus activating pupils and ensuring a connection between school science learning and daily life. This process will be continued with each POPBL learning phase and shall result in an increasing learning loop.

POPBL allows not only for pupils to find their individual way to science (enculturation, which means the gradual learning of the new rules in the scientific world) but can also be applied in different country cultures. It should therefore be effective in all cultural settings. This was analyzed and proved by applying POPBL in different countries within the project. Cultural differences relating to POPBL-teaching are:

 ■      The distance of POPBL teaching to the actual “traditional” teaching style (Countries whose teaching styles are too foreign to POPBL might not be able nor willing to experience POPBL)

 ■    The level of interest and achievement in science subjects being already high in the country (ceiling effect: A country like Finland with obviously excellent achievements in learning science might not profit too much by changing teaching styles to POPBL)

 ■    The particular increase of girls´ interest and participation (ceiling effect: Those countries where girls are already more interested in science subjects might not take too much advantage by changing teaching styles to POPBL).

All other cultural effects should have no influence on the outcome of the learning process, due to individual access (according to the specific cultures) possible by POPBL.