Dr. David Pundak

Senior Lecturer
School of Engineering

Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee
Jordan Vallley, 15132, Israel 
Head of Web Learning Unit

Ort Braude Engineering College
P.O. Box 78, Karmiel, 20101, Israel 
E-mail: dpundak@braude.ac.il
             david@kinneret.ac.il 
Phone: +972-4-9901843, +972-4-6653748
Call: +972-50-8652404

For the past fifteen years I have been involved in research and development in science and physics education. Having set the goal to advance science education, I founded together with my colleagues a national center for science education - "Blossom of Science" (BOS) at the Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee. At the center we integrate research done by our scientists with enquiry projects conducted by junior-high and high schools students. BOS operates the Kinneret Observatory and the Potable Astronomy Laboratoy (PAL). Dozens of astronomy-days and events are taking place every year. We organize and guide science camps where students conduct enquiry projects in science and astronomy. The team developed and translates a Hebrew version of NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) as part of Internet Astronomy School . In the past few years high school physics students, supervised by our scientists, did about fifty matriculation astronomy projects at BOS. Ten years ago we developed another version of the matriculation project named ASTROTOP. The ASTROTO uses astronomy databases from academic institutions all over the world. The ASTROTOP's students and their supervisors won a number of astronomy competitions in Europe. 

At the past decade I also work at the ORT Braude Engineering College (OBEC) in Karmiel. At OBEC I founded and head the Web Learning Unit (WLU). WLU focuses on the development of courses learned through the Internet. The developed web sites enable students and instructors to take advantage of web technology and to enrich the social activities and the knowledge resources of the courses. At the same time, we evaluate the influence of Web technology on instruction and learning. In cooperation with Davidson College, WLU develops a Hebrew version of Physics in Multiple-Representation Approach. The multiple-representation web site has hundreds of simulations in physics and instructions how to learn from these activities.