Being a Biomaker, no passports needed Erasmus Project

Project Title

Being a Biomaker, no passports needed

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: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

The schools involved in this project include science and technology education, as well as teaching of foreign languages as main goals of their curricula. A large number of studies have emphasized a worrying decrease in the interest of young people in science and technology.
“Being a Biomaker, no passports needed” is a project that shows how the scientific knowledge and problem-solving capacity contributed by the maker’s philosophy, BioMaker or Bio DiY, has no borders for several reasons:
-Our association brings together Macedonia and other countries belonging to the European Union in the same project.
– It allows to build a laboratory with complex equipment at low cost.
– The laboratory will be designed taking into account the electrical self-sufficiency of the equipment so that it can be replicated in disadvantaged areas of Europe and also in other parts of the world.
The project arises from the association of 4 schools from different areas of Europe, with three of them that have been partners in a previous project “Be a maker at School” of robotics and BioDiY. The innovation of this new project lies in the construction of new laboratory equipment with more complex devices that include optical, electronic and self-consuming energy systems. The shortage of BioDiY or BioMaker projects and the potential it can represent for schools around the world, have led us to schools with different STEM profiles to build this project and to agree on the following objectives:

The learning of science and technology is one of the bases towards employment and social inclusion.
-Propose a personalized and collaborative learning, take advantage of the accessibility to open educational resources that will be generated in the website and in the different platforms.
-Improvement of competences of students particularly linguistic, scientific and technological.
– Promote equity and social cohesion.
-Encourage cooperation between European countries to improve dialogue between cultures, increase employment opportunities and expand the range of job offers.
-Enhance competences in creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all levels of education and training.
-Teaches students with innovative learning approaches and improve their skills in the STEM subjects
To achieve these objectives we propose the following activity plan

• Promote and bring students closer to the most innovative fields of the biomaker movement. The Open Hardware, Open Software and emerging biotechnology allow to acquire new skills to be included in the scientific-technological competence of a high school student and necessary for their future active European citizenship.
• Create and design tools to build a low cost biotechnology laboratory that can be replicated in other secondary schools.
• Evaluate the tools built for the biotechnology laboratory with a reference laboratory.
• Introduce the proposal of challenges, so common in other areas of the adolescent such as sports or video games, in the teaching of STEM subjects.
• Exchange good practices implemented in each of the centers through virtual communication channels, work networks, meetings and mobilities that improve key skills.

At all times the inquired based learning methodology will be followed, the resolution of challenges and problems, implicit in the DiY or Maker philosophy that is characterized by a continuous review and improvement of its resources in an open space.
The results of our project will be distributed in three steps:
Construction, assembly, calibration and use in small investigations of laboratory equipment.
Design of the electrical self-supply of the equipment.
Creation of construction guides, assembly, calibration and use of laboratory equipment.

The construction of a laboratory with complex equipment at low cost can have a significant impact among the STEM teachers of the schools involved, and of schools in their area of ​​influence, makers, national and international skateholders, but above all to the students who will be able to experiment in biotechnology and chemistry with instruments only available in university laboratories and professionals labs. These schools can become point of reference for other European schools, even those in the most disadvantaged areas.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 112527 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES David Bujan & Country: ES

Project Partners

• ISTITUTO DI ISTRUZIONE SUPERIORE GALILEO GALILEI
• Viesoji istaiga Panevezio profesinio rengimo centras
• SOU ,,Orde Chopela”