Eureka - Past, Present and Future is a project which has, at its heart, two key priorities: fighting levels of youth unemployment and ensuring that young people complete their schooling, leaving their educational establishment qualified, skilled and optimistic and generating enthusiasm about their role as a European citizen, through working collaboratively with fellow European citizens. This project proposes to foster entrepreneurship, from an early age, and the idea that anyone has the capability of being an inventor. It aims to inspire young people, build on their sense of initiative and to show them that through team work, cooperation, hard work and good leadership, they will be the next generation of inventors. It will also provide a detailed training manual for primary school teachers on "The Design Process" and the practicalities of running such a project in a school situation. The key overall objectives of this project are:• To increase participants’ sense of initiative and entrepreneurship • To increase competence in foreign languages• To increase the level of participants’ digital competence• To provide the opportunity to research, design, create, manufacture and present an invention• To foster greater understanding to linguistic and cultural diversity• To foster a more positive attitude towards the European Project.The schools involved in this project are from five countries; Scotland, Romania,France, Italy and Greece. The pupils who will mostly be involved in this project will be of upper primary age, teachers, governors and parents will all also be involved. Due to the nature of this project local manufacturing, marketing, media and business organisations such as the Chambers of Commerce will also be involved.The project has been carefully planned around meetings and tangible, achievable outcomes. The following activities will take place during the lifetime of the project:- Project blog - this will detail the project progress on a weekly basis-Logo-Erasmus Corner at each school -Inventors and invention research - pupils from each school will undertake research on inventors and inventions from their own country in their own language. They will create fact sheets and presentations which can then be used to go into an e-book. - Production of a multi-lingual, multi media E-book will be produced. - Pupils from all partner schools will replicate some of the inventions which they have researched. This creating models of inventions will be filmed and photographed with a view to creating a "virtual museum of inventions".Production of a "virtual museum"video. - Competition time! Each school will set up a competition inviting pupils to think of an invention and to present their ideas. There will be a competition held at each school. This competition will be filmed. The winning team from each country will bring their ideas to the next partnership meeting. - manufacturing of the pupils inventions - An assembly presenting the inventions involving staff, pupils, parents, governors,press will be held. The next phase of the project will be discussed, including the production of the E-Book on inventions. - Ebook of inventions produced and the manual on product design will be prepared and written. The impact of this project on teaching staff and pupils will be hugely beneficial both in terms of being able to work on a meaningful cross-curricular project in school and trans-nationally. It will increase both staff and pupils sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and will enable them to learn and practise a variety of foreign languages. The skills learned from this project will stay with the pupils as they go into the world of work thus increasing their employability and confidence. As pupils will have been working closely together with and visiting partner schools this will create a better understanding of different social and cultural diversity. Digital competence will naturally improve as pupils and staff will communicate via digital means as well as face-to-face. They will be using digital technology throughout the whole of this project as a means of presenting ideas and summarising completed work. To disseminate the results and acclivities of the project further afield we will shall use:- local, regional and national press - TV and radio publicity - assemblies to which local business and council members are invited - educational websites such as Etwinning and TES resources - Local educational conferences- European Trade fairs (Thessaloniki)Each school plans to organise young entrepreneurship seminars and hands-on workshops, aimed at primary teachers and students, with a view of showing the stages of the realization of our project specifically, turning the students’ innovative ideas into real products, and/or the stages of setting up a business plan generally. We will therefore act as the inspiration for students and teachers and provide the know-how as well.
Eureka - Past, Present and Future had two key priorities: fighting levels of youth unemployment and ensuring that young people complete their schooling, leaving their educational establishment qualified, skilled, optimistic and enthusiastic about their role as a European citizen. This project fostered entrepreneurship, and the idea that anyone has the capability of being an inventor. It inspired young people, built on their sense of initiative and showed them that through team work, hard work and good leadership, they can be the next generation of inventors. It also provided a detailed training manual for primary school teachers on "The Design Process" and the practicalities of running such a project in a school situation. The key overall objectives of this project were: • To increase participants’ sense of initiative and entrepreneurship • To increase competence in foreign languages • To increase the level of participants’ digital competence • To provide the opportunity to research, design,create, manufacture and present an invention• To foster greater understanding to linguistic and cultural diversity • To foster a more positive attitude towards the European Project. The schools involved in this project were from five countries;Perth-Scotland, Brasov-Romania,Paris-France, Verbania-Italy and Thessaloniki-Greece. The pupils who were mostly involved in this project were of upper primary age, teachers, governors, parents, and local universities, in addition local manufacturing, marketing, media and business organisations such as the Chambers of Commerce were involved. The following activities took place during the lifetime of the project:- Project and pupil blogs, project Logo design,-Erasmus Corner at each school, existing inventors and inventions research, a multi media E-book of this research. Games based on this research.Trip to Thessaloniki to present research. Pupils from all partner schools replicated some of the inventions which they had researched. This was presented by all partner schools in Paris. This creation of models of inventions was filmed and photographed and a "virtual museum of inventions" was created. Design workshops with specialists were held. A dissemination document for Year One was produced. Competitions at each school, inviting pupils to think of an invention and to present their ideas were held at each school. The winning team from each country presented their ideas at the partnership meeting in Romania. Prototypes of the inventions were created. The initial ideas were presented by pupils in Brasov. A large, public exhibition of all partners’ final inventions was held in Perth, Scotland, involving staff, pupils, parents, governors, local Councillors, local businesses, local schools and the press. A film was produced summarising the winning invention ideas. The manual on Product Design was prepared, written and disseminated. A dissemination document for Year Two was produced. The impact of this project on teaching staff, pupils, and parents was hugely beneficial both in terms of being able to work on a meaningful cross-curricular project in school and trans-nationally. It has increased both staff and pupils sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and enabled them to learn and practise a variety of foreign languages. The skills learned from this project will stay with the pupils as they go into the world of work thus increasing their employability and confidence. As pupils have been working closely together with and visiting partner schools, this has created a better understanding of different social and cultural diversity and many friendships have been established. Digital competence has naturally improved as pupils and staff communicated via digital means as well as face-to-face. They have been using digital technology throughout the whole of this project as a means of presenting ideas, summarising completed work and creating inventions. To disseminate the results and activities of the project further afield we have used:- local, regional and national press - TV and radio publicity -assemblies to which local business and council members have been present - educational websites such as Etwinning, TES resources and Local educational conferences. Each school organised young entrepreneurship seminars, exhibitions and hands-on workshops, aimed at primary teachers and pupils, with a view to showing the stages of the realization of our project specifically, turning the students’ innovative ideas into real products. An impact survey was conducted and 80% of participants would like to be involved in such a project again.