Clean Air Classroom Startup Erasmus Project

Project Title

Clean Air Classroom Startup

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Environment and climate change; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Clean air classroom startup promotes STE(A)M studies across Europe and encourages curious minds to learn more about the environment, globally and locally with the help of a self-developed measuring device.

Education professionals and employers agree that there is a strong need for more widespread good practices in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths ) education. European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) lists STEM professionals as one of the top five skill shortages across the EU. The need for STEM experts and the problem of attracting students, especially girls, to STEM fields persists in all participating countries. One of the main objectives of this project is to encourage students to study STEM topics and promote science education within their respective communities.

Building upon their experiences with Phenomenon based learning (PhBL), STEM education and the SpaceTEAM.eu STEAM course, the two partnering schools based in Belgium and Finland work together in promoting STEAM opportunities and the value of European cooperation in a new and exciting way with the help of a STEAM course based on exploring each others environment.

Heilig Hartinstituut Heverlee based in Leuven, Belgium is a catholic secondary school. Suininlahti School is a public lower secondary school based in Siilinjärvi, Finland. Each school will select a team consisting of around 6 teachers to work on the project. The course will consist of groups of around 20-24 students between the ages of 15-16. We focus on gender equality, and aim for an even 50/50 distribution between boys and girls.

The aim of the project is to create a framework for a project based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Maths) course where secondary school students will examine the environment globally and locally through a wide range of activities. In the first part, student teams work together simultaneously in the partner countries, creating a measuring device measuring relevant parameters of their environment at ground level and in the troposphere. An online learning space, where students can learn from each other and communicate with their peers in other countries will be an essential platform during the course, ensuring transnational cooperation.

The scientific data gathered during the exploration of the different environments will be compared and analyzed to have a good idea about the global air quality. In the second part of the project, these results alongside the physical products will be used to explore their habitat, the classroom. Students will measure the air quality in different type of classrooms (steam-, laboratory–, normal classroom…) and hopefully conclude it needs improvement. Starting from the necessity of a healthier study environment, they will brainstorm ideas to improve the air quality and develop it into a product or service. At this stage the focus shifts to entrepreneurship and creative problem solving processes. These student startups will have the opportunity to visit each other’s classroom and environment and explain their solutions to one another. Finally they will pitch their findings and solutions to the wider community with the hope of inspiring the public to be interested in clean air solutions and environmental topics in a local as well as global framework. Next to a Twinspace on eTwinning, a project website, www.CLAIR.eu, will also be created, as it will host a blog kept by students during the project and report on the project on a larger scale. The aim is to engage the online community to get interested in STE(A)M through a strong online presence with the help of the website and social media.

The course is carried out in Finland and Belgium, by a combined total of 48 students. To create the framework for the project, the schools involved will rely on their experience gained in their previous common project, ‘SpaceTEAM.eu’, where they exchanged ideas, methods and best practices in introducing STEAM to the schools in an innovative way. In the years to come, all schools in Europe who want explore their environment and learn more about global and local air quality themselves, will be able to join the program through a suitable platform like eTwinning. Future participants of the program will have the framework with all materials, lesson plans and guidelines, which are created during this project at their disposal.

The partnering schools are already deeply involved in STEM education, and see opportunities of further professional development in the shift to STEAM approaches. The inclusion of activities involving arts and soft skills that contribute to the A of STEAM, closely align with European Key Competences such as cultural awareness and EU citizenship. From our experience in the SpaceTEAM.eu project we can say that it’s an tremendous added value for the student to communicate with their peers in English.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 64953 Eur

Project Coordinator

Heilig-Hartinstituut Lyceum & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Suininlahden Koulu