Xplora allows the user to discover, through pioneering experiences, new ways of approaching teaching and learning about science. It offers activities, tools and innovative resources as well as thoughtful articles and other materials. At the same time, it is a meeting point for scientific education professionals, where they can exchange experiences and opinions.
The need to adapt to new knowledge emerging at an increasing and unstoppable rate gives an urgency to the search for new ways of learning. The role of schools is proving insufficient to cover the training needs of future citizens. The now active participation of other agents (like science museums), requires increased cooperation between the two. Xplora is the first European project of its kind. It has been developed with the ECSITE consortium, European SchoolNet and 12 science museums from all over Europe . Each museum has developed a science-themed project in collaboration with a network of local schools. The experiences have stimulated cooperation between schools and museums and the most successful projects will be used to lay the foundations for new ways of teaching.
Xplora was publicly launched in June 2005 in Vantaa ( Finland ) during the annual ECSITE congress.

Entitled The City and the School: Collaboration for Education , professionals from bodies and institutions involved in the task of educating the city's young people –outside schools– met and offered new perspectives on education in the 21 st century, placing special emphasis on current cultural, scientific and artistic realities.
For more than a year, the National Science and Technology Museum has been playing an active part in the working groups of the Educational Coordination Council, together with a score of bodies linked to the promotion of scientific culture in the Barcelona area, looking for better co-responsibility in the task of education in the city.
The conclusions of these working groups were presented during the study days and placed special emphasis on innovation, as much in the design and carrying out of activities as in the way the bodies work.
On the one hand, the products on offer should be vetted for quality, linked with the school curriculum, and allow for continuity in the work done (prior to and after the activity) through the use of complementary educational materials. While on the other hand, innovation should also translate into increased interaction between the outside body and the school in order to facilitate adaptation to the school's needs. This would imply establishing direct contact with the teaching staff both in the design, execution and evaluation of the activities.
For more information please visit the Educational Coordination Council's website:http://www.bcn.es/imeb/ccp/cat/que_es.html