This paper presents the experience of an initatve, the EXPLORE courses, designed to bring science and technology closer to secondary school. The EXPLORE courses, organised by “EXPLORATORI: Natural Resources” project, are partcularly addressed to secondary school teachers and are conducted at Catalonia (North East of Spain). | Journal of Technology and Science Education EXPLORE: AN ACTION TO BRING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CLOSER TO SECONDARY SCHOOL Nuria Torras-Melenchon1, M. Dolors Grau1, Josep Font-Soldevila1, Josep Freixas2 Departament d'Enginyeria Minera I Recursos Naturals (EMRN), Escola Superior d'Enginyeria de Manresa (EPSEM), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech 1 Departament de Matemàtca Aplicada III, Escola Politècnica Superior d'Enginyeria de Manresa (EPSEM), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech 2 Spain , dolors@, font@, Received December 2014 Accepted February 2015 Abstract This paper presents the experience of an initatve, the EXPLORE courses, designed to bring science and technology closer to secondary school. The EXPLORE courses, organised by “EXPLORATORI: Natural Resources” project, are partcularly addressed to secondary school teachers and are conducted at Catalonia (North East of Spain). The main objectve is to provide secondary school teachers with the opportunity to explore the natural resources. Based on a combinaton of face-to-face and online learning, the programme of the courses uses an interdisciplinary approach, integratng Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematcs (STEM) and STEAM (STEM + art) felds. Data presented in this paper correspond to the 2012 and 2013 editons. The results, which were obtained from a writen questonnaire completed by teacher partcipants of EXPLORE courses, indicate that more than 70% of secondary school teachers were encouraged to introduce some course contents on their teaching classes afer partcipatng in an EXPLORE course. Keywords – Teacher educaton, Secondary school, Natural resources, STEM educaton, STEAM educaton. ---------- 1 INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, the number of students in science and technology felds has increased in absolute terms in most European countries, but their proporton of the total student .
