Living STEM Erasmus Project

Project Title

Living STEM

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Environment and climate change; Natural sciences

Project Summary

Global warming calls for global action and we need to understand the impact each one of us can have. This starts at the very beginning of our education. In Belgium, students are protesting every week against the Government’s inaction towards climate change. This shows a real interest among young people and gives us reasons to educate younger children on sustainable habits they can adopt from an early age. According to the EU’s figures, 55% of the GES are caused by housing, agriculture, waste and transport. In Belgium, agriculture is still responsible for 10,8% of global emissions (2017). It is crucial to find solutions for children to start their lives with new eating habits.

In addition, STEM education has proven to be insufficient to fulfil the needs of our fast-paced society. According to the PISA results, many countries are lagging behind in STEM. It shows that 22.2% of European 15-year-olds present an underachievement in maths and 20.6% in science. These numbers show a critical need for an improvement in STE(A)M education.

The project will impact the STEAM learning experience of children between 10 and 14 years old, which is the end of primary school and beginning of secondary school, in order to give them a gateway to secondary scientific courses. By learning about permaculture, they will understand the impact of global warming and will develop their critical thinking to adopt a sustainable lifestyle.

Living STEM provides a full learning experience linking in-class learning and field activities with a gamification system, allowing children to discover the daily use of STEM in playful settings.The project will tackle this need by providing an introduction to science through the partnership between teachers and stakeholders in the field of permaculture. The partners will organize a collaborative learning experience using the lessons, field observations and experiments to draw conclusions on biology, adaptation to climate change through biodiversity and the solutions that each one of us can bring in this way.

Social inclusion and economic equity will be targeted in the sense that a social mix can be reached by creating a network of schools including all social categories and learners with specific learning disorders. Consequently, this educative programme allows us to respond to the Europe 2020 Strategy.

There will be 7 participating organisations with various profiles in 6 different countries.
The diversity of geographical and cultural environments will bring more interest to the knowledge transfer between different parts of Europe. The chosen profiles will allow to fulfill the activities according to each specific expertise: project management, quality control and process evaluation, digital presence, event organisation and dissemination of results for further exploitation of the tools and sustainability of the project.

In addition to formal learning, the project will use gamification, non-formal learning and peer learning to improve the participants’ experience. The gamification system and deck of cards will also help children make a connection between the project’s practical activities and visits. It is foreseen to write a manual including pedagogical guides and proposing activity designs. Pupils will be asked to build some material themselves to show the learning outcomes of the experience. They will elaborate the plans of an ideal kitchen garden and create an ideal menu based on the learning of the ingredients that have partly grown in their vegetable garden. Children and other participants will also be invited to find information on the topics to raise awareness by creating a library of content that the users will comment and rate.

The created intellectual outputs will allow the elaboration of tools used for informal learning. Each one of them is led by one partner, according to its proven expertise. Management activities are also spread out among the partners according to their expertise to ensure efficiency. All the outputs will be monitored and tested during the project by the beneficiaries under professional supervision. The digital presence will be guaranteed throughout numerous tools. The outcomes will be widely shared through national and international meetings and events.

The materials created will be used widely and adaptable to various contexts. Pupils will benefit from a more open-minded approach of teaching, combining theory and practice. The education sector will be enhanced by innovative tools on the current topic of adaptation to climate change, a gateway to scientific courses, which fulfills the need to improve the level of students in STEM courses in EU countries.

A generation of students will be benefiting from this new way of teaching. Hopefully, this approach will be translated to other branches in order to adapt the European education system to the needs of students and teachers. Nowadays, an evolution is needed to tackle the need for links between theory and practi

Project Website

https://www.livingstem.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 288123 Eur

Project Coordinator

GENERATIONS.BIO & Country: BE

Project Partners

• C.I.P. CITIZENS IN POWER
• The Polish Farm Advisory and Training Centre not-for-profit Sp. z o. o.
• TRANSIT PROJECTES
• SCS LogoPsyCom
• EDU lab
• ed-consult