Promoting gender-balanced STEM education through DIY kits for teaching physics in the classroom Erasmus Project

Project Title

Promoting gender-balanced STEM education through DIY kits for teaching physics in the classroom

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

CONTEXT
Recent research has shown that gender inequality in STEM education has revealed the presence of a “leaky pipeline” (Yatskiv, 2017), meaning that women systemically drop out of STEM-related tracks at various levels of their education. The European Commission believes that without true gender equality and mainstreaming in science fields, scientific excellence would never be truly achieved. As a matter of fact, women are more likely to have a higher education degree but remain under-represented in STEM and related fields. At the same time, in an increasingly multidisciplinary world, young students have lost their interest in traditional subjects, such as physics, chemistry, biology, etc. are already considered obsolete (Briggs, 2016). However, science subjects should never be considered out-of-fashion since our world rotates around science. The issue is identified in teaching methods. Therefore, the need for stimulating, engaging and gender-appealing teaching methods in STEM subjects is now more important than ever, a fact that should be initiated in secondary education where young students start to share their interests and inclines for their future education and careers.

OBJECTIVE
PhysicsKIT4STEM has as primary objective to strengthen the teaching skills of STEM educators by offering a hands-on approach to teach physics through DIY kits, electronics and programming, powered by a Raspberry Pi computer, while at the same time advocating gender-balanced STEM classrooms and encouraging young girls to science and engineering subjects.

PARTICIPANTS
A school, an ICT training centre, a University, a non-profit training organisation, a company specialising in training solutions and knowledge dissemination and a technical consultancy designing and building hands-on training tools. Several associate partners from the area of ICT-enabled E&T and schools.

ACTIVITIES
The main objective will be achieved through the following activities:
-Design and develop a curriculum for using the PhysicsKIT to teach pupils physics concepts (e.g., motion and forces, gravity, vibration and electricity) through the creation of hands-on constructions, simple programming and physical computing;
-Elaborate a Glossary, explaining terms used in physics, programming, electronics and physical computing;
-Design and develop the PhysicsKIT powered by a Raspberry Pi single-board computer, complemented by sensors and electronics to simulate and experiment on physics phenomena along with a guide to build it;
-Design lesson plans in support of the curriculum to build kits and use peripherals in an educational hands-on play approach;
-Prepare a Learning Motivation Environment for the delivery of the curriculum to teachers/educators and for skills retention purposes;
-Testing, validation and finalisation of the PhysicsKIT Back-pack and Educators Handbook and Resources;
-Support the final outcomes through a dedicated virtual space (PhysicKIT Club) providing access to all project results and infrastructure for supporting the growth of a community of adopters/practitioners/enthusiasts.

METHODOLOGY
An iterative methodology: three versions of the results are produced, one in each iteration. After each iteration, the results are tested/validated and based on the conclusions the next iteration is planned.

RESULTS
-The PhysicsKIT comprising DIY kits, sensors, electronics and peripherals
-PhysicsKIT Curriculum and Glossary
-PhysicsKIT Guide for assembly and configuration to be used with the provided content
-PhysicsKIT Educators Handbook with lesson plans
-Learning Motivation Environment in all partners’ languages delivering the PhysicsKIT content in the form of engaging online multimedia resources
-PhysicsKIT Club virtual space with supporting infrastructure

TARGET GROUP
Teachers of Physics, STEM professionals, teachers, trainers and counsellors not directly involved in STEM, all categories of school education staff, pupils, parents. In the life of the project: professionals working with children of mainly 10-15 years. Apart from direct target groups, the beneficiaries comprise also indirect target groups such as schools, children’s/parents associations and organisations, policymakers working on gender equality and gender mainstreaming, and educational stakeholders deciding about subjects covered by school curricula, parents, etc. After the life of the project and subject to the delivery of concrete results, more target groups become relevant, such as commercial organisations producing serious games for educational purposes, universities with physics/pedagogical/engineering departments, STEM toys manufacturers.

BENEFITS
-Elucidate findings regarding ways of introducing children to physics and STEM through hands-on play.
-Create evidence-based policy and research recommendations for using educational play to teach STEM-related subjects.
-Act as a node of knowledge dissemination on how to engage young girls to physics and STEM in general.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 185355 Eur

Project Coordinator

ECAM-EPMI & Country: FR

Project Partners

• ATERMON B.V.
• PISTES SOLIDAIRES
• PROJETO SCHOLE LDA
• ASSERTED KNOWLEDGE OMORRYTHMOS ETAIREIA
• A & A Emphasys Interactive Solutions Ltd