About the project

 It is predicted that in the future there will be a lack of qualified STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) professionals, while at the same time students talented in STEM pursue careers in different areas. The reason for this is often seen in insufficient development of the student’s key competences due to the outdated educational approach («classes are boring»), prejudice and traditions («science is difficult», «engineering is not for girls» and similar) and often limited support and inert response of the educational ministries in addressing this problem, where It is up to each individual school or a teacher to find a new way and reach out to the students.
With this project we aim to address this challenge through an international partnership of teachers and students and create a sustainable approach in promoting STEM subjects, developing student key competences and strengthening of the teacher competences. The main objective of the project is a development of STEM game (didactic video game) and Arduino gadgets (processor board with sensors to be used as part of experiments)
The development of the game and its implementation is expected to lead to the achievement of the following goals:

INTRODUCTION OF INNOVATIONS IN TEACHING STEM SUBJECTS THROUGH USE OF ICT (ARDUINO and video games)
IMPROVEMENT OF KEY COMPETENCES OF STUDENTS THROUGH STEM SUBJECTS
STRENGTHENING THE STEM TEACHERS COMPETENCE THROUGH NEW METHODS

 We believe that by including more ICT in STEM and focusing on key competence for students and teachers STEM subjects would become more attractive to students, and more practical. Students would become active participants with a role to decide, solve problems and create their own classes. STEM will be considering as fun and real life connected.

By relaying on each other experience and specific knowledge 5 schools from Bulgaria, Poland, Serbia, Spain, and Turkey with the strong background and achievements in STEM, are determined to create STEM game and Arduino gadgets, train the dedicate teams of students and teachers to use it and further train their local peers. For this, 5 mobility events are planned, along with the several video conferences to discuss progress and plans.

To create a STEM game and apply Arduino in STEM classes problems, instructions and explanations have to be created in first three LTTs:
Serbia: real life application of physics and mathematics.
Spain: real life application of chemistry and correlation between math and physics with chemistry.
Poland: biology, ecology and water issues,

Last two LTT will be used to finish the products:

Bulgaria: learning of coding needed for game creation and starting the works on finalization of a game.
Turkey: creating ARDUINO projects for STEM classes.

At same time students who participate in this project will create peer workshops with STEM activities to present it to the fellow students and train them in their usage. Scenarios for this workshops will be collected and published in form of e book, as a great example of activities created for the students by the students. Teachers from different school will work on creating e book with plans for Project based learning, and Lesson plans for STEM game with different STEM subjects.

All partners will be able to use activities created during this project as they will become integrated in school's curriculum. Scenarios for peer workshops will be used as a part of helping new students to adapt to school. Experiments from physics, biology and chemistry will become a regular part of teaching activities. School will get e books with ideas on Project based learning that will become a starting point to new activities. Students and teachers will create new experiments using ARDUINO, that will become a part of teaching tools schools use.

Results:
Output: ARDUINO gadgets and STEM game, lessons plans, instructions eBooks,
Outcome: Existence of a modern and engaging educational approach; knowledge and cultural exchange between the partners; Empowered and confident teachers
Impact: Improved students key competences that would enable a higher percentage of them to make a career choice in STEM related subjects and close the STEM gap.

 

 

 This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.