STEM na tretjo – Tri EU šole v STEM projektu Erasmus Project

Project Title

STEM na tretjo – Tri EU šole v STEM projektu

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: Environment and climate change; Pedagogy and didactics; Natural sciences

Project Summary

We live in a time when human interference with natural environment can be seen and directly felt. As teachers, we are aware that, despite the development of information technologies, we are still the ones who present and transfer knowledge, skills and experiences to young generations. Protection of nature is still the key factor the development and existence of all organisms. The curricula for biology and chemistry in grammar schools in participating countries include the familiarization and the understanding of the causes and consequences of changing ecosystems, however, there is insufficient laboratory and field work for the aims to be fully realized.
Prva gimnazija Maribor has been cooperating with Česko-anglické gymnázium from České Budějovice and l. gimnazija from Zagreb for years. Natural science teachers of all three schools have established that they encounter similar problems and have similar ideas about the updating and modernizing of teaching methods. This led to our plan to design a project which would deal with experimental and field work related to ecological topics in biology and chemistry curricula.

Since air and water pollution isn’t only a local but also a regional and global problem, we wish to give more emphasis to these topics. Hence the main aims of the project are:
– to enable staff and students to use the SI-method, which is fast, cheap and simple; it is used for listing the presence, abundance and coverage of all three growing forms (crustaceous, leafy, shrubby) of lichen, which are directly related to the sensitivity or resistance of the lichen to polluted air, and include it in regular work;
– to learn how to analyze water quality chemically and incorporate this into lesson plans;
– to prepare appropriate materials with the same methodology for the experimental work of students, which will be used in the schools involved in the future;
– we would like to raise the environmental awareness of the participants first, and subsequently of other students at our schools;
– to enable students and teachers to get acquainted with some relevant institutions (universities, treatment plants and institutes) in all three cities;
– to develop intercultural, digital and linguistic competences of participants.

The project will include students aged 14 to 17. We will select students who are aware of environmental issues and want to get more informed and involved in solving environmental problems. Other criteria will include their enthusiasm, eagerness to learn and adopt new methods of experimental work, their communicative and language skills. Twelve students from each school will be involved in mobilities, and a lot more will actively participate in two years. The teachers involved are teachers of biology and chemistry (2 or 3 from each school) and a lab assistant. Heads of schools will also be active participants.
The main students’ activities are related to experimental and field work which will be performed at selected sampling sites at least ten times, followed by comparison and evaluation of all results, statistical processing, preparation of reports and presentation of results, as well as other activities recorded in the timing plan. The main activities of the participating teachers will be the preparation and unification of the relevant materials for teachers (lesson plans) and students (instructions for experimental work). In addition, they will be actively involved in field work, the processing and evaluation of results, the organization of and involvement in LTTs, as well as in dissemination for various stakeholders (schools, parents, other teachers, local community).
The methodology of project implementation mainly involves independent experimental work of students, methods of statistical data processing, comparison and presentation of results , lectures and workshops at external participating institutions and the use of ICT.

On the basis of the obtained experimental results and their comparison, we expect that the participating cities will differ in the degree of air pollution and the presence of important ions in rivers (due to the different size of cities, industrialization and traffic density). We assume that the selected experimental methods and all materials will be suitable for use in regular classes in the following years. We recognize the positive effect and long-term benefits of implementing this project in the fact that students of all three schools will benefit from new contents and methodology in lessons and extra-curricular activities. Moreover, a greater awareness of environmental issues is expected, more interest in natural science subjects and extra-curricular activities. Teachers will enrich their range of contemporary methods and thus make some changes while implementing new materials and knowledge. Intercultural co-operation, understanding and tolerance are also significant, as European values ​​will be strengthened.

Project Website

http://www.prva-gimnazija.si/projekti/erasmus-ka229

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 55327,66 Eur

Project Coordinator

Prva gimnazija Maribor & Country: SI

Project Partners

• I. gimnazija
• Cesko-anglicke gymnazium s.r.o.