Fantastic Four Erasmus Project

Project Title

Fantastic Four

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Natural sciences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Fantastic Four was a strategic partnership whose main objective was exchange of good practises on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) methodologies among 4 European primary and secondary schools. The coordinating school was Nám. L. Novomeského 2, Košice, Slovakia. The other three partners were Malmslättsskolan Tokarp in Sweden, Agrupamento de Escolas de Canas de Senhorim in Portugal and CEIP Arcipreste de Hita in Spain. Each school had a different field of expertise and in our partnership we shared these abilities and learned from one another. It was a give-and-take relationship based on mutual concessions, shared benefits and cooperation. Slovak project team focused on Physics enquiry based activities, Spanish project team adapted all activities to young learners ‘needs and special needs students, Portuguese project team focused on Mathematics and Maths computer programmes and Swedish project team introduced cross-curricular methodology that implemented environmental issues into STEM education. The partnership was established because recent studies show our students lack STEM skills and are reluctant to pursue it as their future career. Since there is a shortage of STEM workers across Europe, Fantastic Four contributed to solving this problem by increasing student’s interest in STEM, promoting a positive image of STEM, making improvements in school based science teaching and learning, empowering teachers with innovative teaching methods, supporting inter-peers learning and aiming for gender balance. The target groups consisted of students and teachers of the above mentioned schools, however, the newly-adapted activities as well as all the other outcomes were available to all teachers across Europe on the joint-project web site on Twinspace as well as on the disemination platform E+ VALOR. The activities were as follows: presenting the project and setting up the project web site, survey done on teachers and students in the beginning and at the end of the project, Science Week held simultaneously at all schools, STEM Olympic Games full of gripping activities both for girls and boys, and evaluation and adaptation of all developed materials. In the course of 2 years the partnership produced these tangible and intangible products: a joint-project web site on Twinspace, a questionnaire for students, a questionnaire for teachers, detailed analysis of these two questionnaires, ppt presentations about project teams, ppt presentations about schools/regions/countries, worksheets with activities in English, Slovak, Swedish, Portuguese and Spanish, activities for young learners/special needs children in all 5 languages, videos, quizzes, exhibitions, excursions, World Games presentation, Science Week, STEM Olympic Games, a brochure with Maths tasks. The main expectations regarding the impact were changing the way STEM was taught and viewed, an increase in students ‘motivation to study STEM, an increase of the number of qualified people within Europe and thus reduction of the number of the unemployed, an improvement of students´ grades, an increase in teacher job satisfaction, an improvement of European education system by implementing innovative practices, creating a network of professionals across Europe and an intercultural awareness and respect for the different cultures of European countries.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 103930 Eur

Project Coordinator

Zakladna skola Nam. L. Novomeskeho 2, Kosice & Country: SK

Project Partners

• Malmslättsskolan Tokarp
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Canas de Senhorim
• CEIP Arcipreste de Hita