LINKING THE SECONDARY SCHOOL WITH UNIVERSITY: A PROJECT FOR ENGAGING STUDENTS

Traditionally in Spain, the university-high school relationship was limited to the delivery of some information or an institutional site visit. However, during the last few years several Spanish universities are feeling the need of increasing the communication and exposure of its research activities, and they are opening their buildings to the entire society (firms, citizens, public administration). Moreover, to gain this objective, they are also organizing specific exposure activities, such as fairs and exhibitions, conferences, or workshops, among other. In this context a specific part of the community, students at the secondary school, can feel assorted motivations when they have to decide the bachelor degree they want to start. Then, in the process of spreading the functions carried out by the University not only research activities might be included but also the main teaching activities or degrees. For this reason new collaboration projects between universities and high school centers are required for showing these students carefully the subjects included in the study programs. With this idea it began a project based on the development of simple research projects by high school students with the help of their high school teachers but also with the guide of a University professor. The topic, which can be proposed by any member in the educational institutions (i.e. University or high school), should be related with any subject taught in the degree. The duration of the project is approximately 6 months, that is, less than one academic course. After holding at least 3 meetings to speak about the work method, and once the project has been developed, students might present the main results of it in a specific conference where several high school students will meet together to share their findings. In this paper it is included a specific experience held by some teachers from the marketing area at Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena (UPCT) who have taken part in the mentioned project. Then, the main results and conclusions of the teaching experience have been included.