The Belmonte Science Laboratories Center was founded by the Hebrew University, together with the Jerusalem Municipality Science Education Department and the Jerusalem Foundation in 1990, with the goal of creating a state of-the-art science education center for high school pupils and their teachers to pique their interest in natural sciences.
Belmonte offers high schools a unique field trip opportunity, whereby they learn science with a vast range of experimental and hands-on activities. The primary fields of interest in Belmonte are chemistry, biology, and physics.
Today Belmonte serves 70 schools from Jerusalem: 80% of them Hebrew speaking from West Jerusalem and 20% Arab-speaking from East Jerusalem, and about 50 schools from all over Israel. Every year about 16,000 pupils in 9th to 12th grades and their teachers visit Belmonte.
In addition to holding workshops and lectures for pupils, the facility provides various training programs for teachers.
Belmonte forms a bridge between the formal education system and the frontiers of scientific and technological research.
Objectives and Goals:
- For many years, Belmonte has been a focal point for educational innovation and challenge while providing high school pupils with access to academic infrastructures and current research.
- To introduce thousands of pupils from high schools in Jerusalem and throughout Israel, as well as their teachers, to the Hebrew University and to reinforce, empower, enrich, and update both teachers and high schoolers in the various fields of science in an advanced and challenging academic setting.
- To promote the teaching of sciences in middle and high schools.
- To encourage scientific thinking and foster a "scientific spirit" among teachers and pupils.
- To develop and update curricula and experiments in accordance with the Ministry of Education's plan, at a more advanced level.
- To offer advanced education programs for teachers and expose them to the forefront of scientific research.
- To provide a modular response to the unique needs of different schools.
- To develop a variety of unique excellence tracks for pupils with strong learning motivation and high abilities.
To the Hebrew Website of the Belmonte Science Laboratories Center, click here
