Guiding Girls to STEM for Grappling Gender Gap Erasmus Project

Project Title

Guiding Girls to STEM for Grappling Gender Gap

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

The project “Guiding Girls to STEM for Grappling Gender Gap – 5Gs4STEM” is presented by IIS Cardarelli of Tarquinia in partnership with 5 schools from Greece, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Poland, for a total duration of 24 months and focuses on female empowerment in STEM disciplines and careers. The theme of STEM coupled with gender equality is now a primary concern in the world of education. It is proven that the lack of choice of scientific faculties lies in the difficulty for female students to imagine employment opportunities and in the still existing gender prejudice that sees women at the forefront of family care, effective policies of conciliation being absent or insufficient.

5Gs4STEM has the following general objectives:

– invest in teacher training in the STEM disciplines, thanks to joint staff training events (JSTEs), for the development and use of innovative teaching and assessment methods that integrate ICT in STEM subjects
– develop new approaches and methods to guide female students to the study of STEM, also in view of post-diploma choices
– reduce disparities in access to and use of ICT, addressing gender differences in relation to the start of studies and career paths in ICT by female students
– improve the language skills of participating teachers and students through the introduction of CLIL in the STEM disciplines

And pursues the following specific objectives:
– + 10% enrollment of female students to scientific faculties within 2 years from the end of the project
– creation of a Toolkit with 18 STEM gender-sensitive teaching units, dedicated to 16-19 year-old students
– permanent inclusion in the partner school curriculum, also in the context of work-based learning experiences, of innovative and gender-sensitive courses related to STEM and 10% of hours provided in CLIL for the STEM disciplines

5Gs4STEM will address the gender gap problem in the STEMs from 6 different angles, each assigned to a partner:
– Coding: a universal language for the planet – Spain
– Practical and innovative methodologies to motivate the study of STEM: labs, outdoor and inquiry based learning – Portugal
– Post-graduation orientation to the STEM faculties – Greece
– Women’s technological skills: what employment prospects and success stories – Poland
– Life skills and STEM: teamwork, computational thinking, resilience – Turkey
– Selfentrepreneurship and STEM: how to create your own business using technologies – Italy
For each of them, 3 teaching units will be created which will merge into the 5Gs4STEM Toolkit, complete with handouts, exercises, assessment tools that schools will integrate into their ordinary curricula, thus achieving general systemic objectives.

Two Joint Staff Training Events will be held in Italy and Greece, focusing on the acquisition by the teachers of new and engaging methodologies of STEM teaching, based on holistic and laboratory approaches (inquiry-based and problem-based learning, outdoor and on the field learning) and six short term students exchanges, each in a partner country, focusing on the six themes described above. The mobility will be attended by 4 female students aged 16-19 and 2 accompanying teachers per country, for a total of 120 female students directly involved. In local activities, which are:
– virtual mobility activities through eTwinning
– event in the European Coding Week
– participation in the national fair on the themes of the project (i.e Fair Makers, Hackaton or similar)
– implementation of the 18 LUs contained in the 5Gs4STEM Toolkit
– final event
around 900 students will be involved.

The project will allow reaching both intangible (learning outcomes) and tangible and concrete results. At the end, the pupils directly involved will have:
– acquired greater awareness of employment opportunities in STEMs
– improved language skills in English, even of specific language related to STEM disciplines
– improved digital skills thanks to the use of various ICT-based methods and tools
– acquired or consolidated transversal skills such as: leadership, public speaking, personal branding, teamworking, resilience, particularly useful for being competitive in the labour market
– developed the sense of EU citizenship.

While the teachers will have:
– acquired new tools and methods for teaching and evaluating the STEM disciplines, with particular reference to inquiry-based learning, laboratory learning, outdoor learning and the use of ICT tools for teaching
– improved language skills thanks to the integration of CLIL in the teaching of STEM subjects.

Results will also be achieved at the school-system level, generating benefits on medium-long term development towards gender equality and in the process of internationalization.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 195596 Eur

Project Coordinator

IIS” Vincenzo Cardarelli” Tarquinia & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Colegio PioXII-FUNDACIÓN ESCUELA VIVA
• FORAVE – Associação para a Educação Profissional do Vale do Ave
• MEHMET ALI BUYUKHANLI MESLEKI VE TEKNIK ANADOLU LISESI
• Liceum Ogolnosztalcace im. Adama Mickiewicza
• 2nd General Lyceum of CHania