Girls Into Global STEM Erasmus Project

Project Title

Girls Into Global 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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Gender equality / equal opportunities; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

‘Girls into Global STEM’ (GIGS, www.gigsproject.eu 2016–19) is a response to well documented reluctance of girls to take up STEM subjects in upper secondary education and the consequent impact this has on the gender balance in universities and in STEM-based careers (Milgram, 2011; Dasgupta & Stout, 2014). GIGS draws on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a focus for its activities at school level. It is therefore very much a product of a growing awareness around global issues, especially among young people, made possible by online newsfeeds and social media.
The objectives adopted by our project were focused on a bottom-up approach that began with providing our target groups with high quality stimulus materials that could foster problem solving and challenge based methodologies, develop digital skills and combine these with increasing global understanding and positive engagement in science:
1. To increase the employment potential of young Europeans, especially girls, by improving their interest and engagement in STEM linked with wider awareness of global issues and facilitated through digital skills.
2. To support teachers in the embedding of digital skills and global learning methodologies into their STEM teaching.
3. To integrate digital literacy set within a global context into STEM education policy and practice.
The GIGS project was coordinated by the University of Hull, each country was represented by either a university or NGO working with a partner secondary school. An additional UK partner was Practical Action. This organisation offers local support for development projects in some of the world’s poorest countries while their education programme helps to bring the challenges these communities face to a school audience in the UK. Practical Action led on the development of key resources – the ‘Global STEM Challenges’. Each secondary school was well known to its national partner and brought something different to the partnership. In the UK De Ferrers Academy is a leader in the use of eBooks and mobile technologies in the classroom, important features of the GIGS project. Gimnazjum w Zespole Szkół w Siennicy in Poland has a laboratory and teaching room dedicated to the technologies for generating renewable energy and a good relationship with our other Polish partner, the Centre for Citizenship Education. The Grammar School, Nicosia is a leader in STEM education and robotics, they are also proven partners of CARDET our other Cypriot partner. In Sweden Sandgärdskolan is closely linked to the University of Boras which sends many students there for their teaching practice.
In the first year of our project we developed the ‘Global STEM Challenges’. These fit into curriculum areas across Europe not only in science but also in geography and citizenship, each one is drawn from one of the Sustainable Development Goals. We demonstrated through our surveys and interviews that these activities have the capacity to inspire all school students and especially girls to find out more about how science and technology can provide practical, often low-cost answers to important global issues. We devised and analysed online surveys for our school students both before and after the practical work. Throughout the challenges the older students, working with younger cohorts, collected video clips, still images and other assets for inclusion in pupil generated eBooks that record their work and contributed to our Teacher Toolkit. We brought together all 32 of the challenge creators for a 5 day workshop in Poland in June 2017 specifically with the aim of finalising their eBooks.
We then moved into a phase which saw the development and testing of a number of in-service and pre-service training programmes that can be adapted by schools, training providers or as part of a pre-service course. Each training course draws on the Global STEM Challenges and other resources assembled in an online project toolkit (www.gigstoolkit.com). A Learning, Teaching and Training event in 2018 helped to prepared partners to develop these training outputs, Multiplier Sessions, academic outputs and local training and dissemination events. These training outputs support transformational learning in our immediate target groups and are easily transferred to other sectors. Our overall aim is that teachers should find out how to run their own Global STEM Challenges and potentially be in a position to train others and so disseminate the work of the project. The impact of the project was demonstrated by the responses and attitudinal changes by all school students, especially girls, to the STEM focused activities developed by the project and the theme of gender equality is prominent in dissemination invitations. However the work has also generated interest in terms of its potential for global education more generally and we see these two themes sustaining interest and awareness of the project beyond the contractual period.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 377630,95 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF HULL & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Zespol Szkol im. H. i K. Gnoinskich w Siennicy
• P.G.M.S. (PRIVATE GRAMMAR & MODERNSCHOOLS) LIMITED
• PRACTICAL ACTION
• HOEGSKOLAN I BORAS
• FUNDACJA CENTRUM EDUKACJI OBYWATELSKIEJ
• The de Ferrers Trust
• Gimnazjum im. K. K. Baczynskiego