Knowledge lab – creating, sharing, protecting Erasmus Project

Project Title

Knowledge lab – creating, sharing, protecting

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Research and innovation; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The project “Knowledge Lab – Creating, Sharing, Protecting, Knowledge” was run by three European schools and three European museums: The LWL-Industrial Museum in Germany, the Hittorf Gymnasium (Germany), the Muzeum Inżynierii Miejskiej (Poland), VI Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Adama Mickiewicza w Krakowie, the Scoil Mhuire (Ireland), the National Museum of Ireland (associated partner). Around 40 students, 10 teachers and 4 museum curators worked together as a group.
During the 28-month long project, the students from Germany, Ireland and Poland dealt with the relevance of knowledge, the transfer of knowledge and the knowledge culture of a modern and globalized Europe. In doing so, the 14 to 17-year-old students worked transnationally as a team and with a variety of perspectives to investigate the following key questions: How does knowledge develop? How can it be shared and protected? Why is it so important?
The main goals were of the project were:
– The intermediation of cultural-, media-, history- and social competence via an extensive examination of the topics through the medium of an exhibition
– Strengthening the cooperation between the educational partners
– Analysis by the participants of the museum as an institution of social knowledge and knowledge transfer

The working language was English.

Based on the curricula of the participating schools, the project focused on three main topics:

1. STEM focus: Learning and transfer of knowledge in and from Nature
2. Artistic focus: Originality – Inspiration – Copy in the field of Arts
3. Social focus: Real or fake: Mass- and brand products, journalism, social- and mass media

As part of the project activities, the participants travelled to Poland, Germany and Ireland. They took part in workshops and got to know different museums, exhibitions and other cultural institutions. There the participants also continued the work at the schools between the workshops (the results were regularly communicated via social media).

In the workshops curators, museum educators and designers taught the students how to make an exhibition in their respective fields of work (researching the thematic complex of knowledge, evaluation and analysis of exhibitions, creation of exhibition concepts, design, etc.) from start to finish.
By visiting exhibitions, the participants put their newly acquired knowledge of evaluation and analysis into practice. In doing so, they got to know the museum as a place and institution of social knowledge and knowledge transfer. In a European comparison, the participants analyzed how knowledge, especially in cultural institutions, is created and presented.

The project activities resulted in the interactive exhibition “Knowledge Lab” designed by the project participants. The “Knowledge Lab” was shown in the LWL Industrial Museum Zeche Zollern in Dortmund for a duration of six months and was visited by around 45,000 people. The participants also developed an accompanying program (interactive elements, website) for the exhibition. In this way, both creators and visitors became part of a social discourse through the exhibition and found themselves to be capable of acting as a part of European society.

The participants also experienced how European educational partnerships and cooperation work. They not only reflected on the cultural peculiarities of their own countries, but also came to the understanding through the joint project work that transnational cooperation opened up additional perspectives: The “Knowledge Lab” and its topics got more European diversity and depth. On the other hand the audience dealt with the different aspects and perspectives of the participants on the subject of knowledge and knowledge transfer and gave feedback on the results. Both the participants and the visitors thus became part of a social European discourse and were able to express and exchange their opinions in this way.
Another conclusion that (was/could be) drawn from the positive course of the project and its results is that the partnerships should be maintained and developed beyond the scope of the original project: e.g. in the joint development of the accessibility of the museum as an extra-curricular learning location and in other cooperation projects.

Last but not least, personal bonds – friendships – were built among the participants in the course of the project. Through this exchange and cooperation, young people from different nations and cultures in Europe experienced, understood and expressed their unity through diversity – culminating in a sustainable contribution to a peaceful, democratic and diverse European society.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 126200 Eur

Project Coordinator

LANDSCHAFTSVERBAND WESTFALEN-LIPPE & Country: DE

Project Partners

• VI Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Adama Mickiewicza Krakow
• MUZEUM INZYNIERII MIEJSKIEJ
• Scoil Mhuire Trim
• Hittorf Gymnasium