Empowering Arts and creativity for the cities of tomorrow Erasmus Project

Project Title

Empowering Arts and creativity for the cities of tomorrow

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 : Partnerships for Creativity

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Environment and climate change; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The Project “DART4CITY Developing and improving Arts and creativity for the cities of tomorrow” arises from the idea of connecting the existing curricula in scholar education, and the need to provide students with skills related to creativity and innovation, to enable them to solve the uncertain changes of the future. To this end, the project uses the STEAM learning model to address this challenge, through the integration of art (A) with the other scientific-technical disciplines: science (S), technology (T), engineering (E), and mathematics (M). Nevertheless, still, some questions and barriers remain regarding the parts of curricula that can be transferred into STEAM learning, and how creative and artistic skills are integrated among the others keeping their essence and importance.
In summary, the GENERAL OBJECTIVE of DART4CITY is to develop and to validate a methodology for the full integration of Arts and Creativity in primary and secondary school curricula in Europe, as part of STEAM teaching approaches, regarding contents, evaluation criteria, learning standards, and methodological recommendations, so they are organized in a global and interdisciplinary way; and to disseminate the proposed methodology at the European level, taking into account the different national backgrounds.
Moreover, the project has the following SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
1.- To analyze the curriculums from different countries using the novel methodology proposed in our previous works and determine the opportunity areas to integrate arts and design in STEAM projects.
2.- Develop and test STEAM projects in real environments, based on the opportunity areas detected in each country based on cooperative puzzles and including new learning methodologies that promote the skills associated to creativity and arts, such as lateral thinking, communication, participation and engagement.
3.-To promote the adaption of educational systems to current societal challenges, mainly regarding sustainable development, that requires competencies associated with creativity, design, and innovation
4.- To promote the social inclusion of students by fostering participatory approaches and intercultural dialogue in education.
5- Improving the skills of trainers and educators, providing them with tools and resources to achieve the above objectives
6- Contacting decision-makers in the field of education, to improve the education laws and the existing curricula
DART4CITY consortium brings together a multidisciplinary team covering three Mediterranean countries: Spain, Italy, and Cyprus, sharing a socio-historical and cultural background while reflecting different formal education systems. It is comprised by 1 University (Cardenal Herrera University, with a long run in Education Sciences; an SME (Alterevo) specialized in territorial development through creativity and civic participation, and two NGOs (Mathisis and Foundation Stepan Zavrel) one of them devoted to the training of students and education communities and the other committed to arts education, the promotion of creativity and intercultural exchange.
As a result, an Intellectual Output comprised of two different deliverables closely related among them will be produced, sustained by an intensive dissemination activity and designed through systematic and participatory research: a Methodology to translate the education normative in STEAM projects. The first deliverable (D1.Methodology to found STEAM projects through the educational laws) will include two different parts: an analysis of the opportunity areas to create STEAM projects, and the final version of the Methodology, which will be transferable to other EU countries. The second deliverable (D2) will be a collection of STEAM projects elaborated by the partners, founded on the validated methodology (D1).
For the implementation of the Methodology, the project foresees a Learning Activity, aimed at training teachers in the methodology and the implementation of the developed projects, which be also an opportunity to obtain feedback for the final improvements.
Besides, 3 events will be organized at the National level, consisting of Workshops for the translation of educational laws into STEAM projects
DART4CITY will substantially impact the formal education system and society as a whole.
– Students (9-16 years old): enhanced skills associated with arts and creativity (teamwork, critical thinking, collaborative thinking, problem-solving, communication)
– Teachers and educators: improved competences in transversal topics and skill-building, more materials and resources available
– Decision-makers: meaningful changes in organizational culture and preparedness to innovation, improved human capital, evidence-based guidelines aligned to educational curricula, new partnerships dedicated to the improvement of education.
-whole society: a new generation more prepared for the challenges of the 21st century.

Project Website

https://dart4city.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 150960 Eur

Project Coordinator

FUNDACION UNIVERSITARIA SAN PABLO-CEU – UNIVERSIDAD CEU CARDENAL HERRERA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Fondazione Mostra Internazionale d’Illustrazione per l’Infanzia Štěpán Zavřel
• Heron Digital Education & Mathisis LTD
• Alterevo srls