Project SpaceTEAM.eu promotes STEM studies across Europe and encourages curious minds to attempt reach space with the help of a spaceship of their own design. Education professionals and employers agree that there is a strong need for more widespread good practices in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths ) education. European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) lists STEM professionals as one of the top five skill shortages across the EU. The need for STEM experts and the problem of attracting students, especially girls, to STEM fields persists in all participating countries. One of the main objectives of this project is to encourage students to study STEM topics and promote science education within their respective communities. Building upon their experiences with Phenomenon based learning (PhBL) and STEM education, the three partnering schools based in Belgium, Finland, and Spain, work together in promoting STEM opportunities and the value of European cooperation in a new and exciting way with the help of a STEAM course based on space exploration. Heilig Hartinstituut Heverlee based in Leuven, Belgium is a catholic secondary school. Suininlahti School is a public lower secondary school based in Siilinjärvi, Finland. IES Adolfo Suárez is a bilingual (Spanish-English) public school based in Madrid, Spain. Each school will select a team consisting of around 6 teachers to work on the project. The course will consist of groups of around 20-24 students between the ages of 15-16. We focus on gender equality, and aim for an even 50/50 distribution between boys and girls. The aim of the project is to create a framework for a project based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Maths) course where secondary school students will examine space and the atmosphere through a wide range of activities while building an actual spacecraft. Student teams work together simultaneously in all partner countries, creating an stratospheric balloon that they will launch to the edge of space to gather scientific data. An online learning space, where students can learn from each other and communicate with their peers in other countries will be an essential platform during the course, ensuring transnational cooperation. The scientific data gathered during the near space missions will be reinterpreted by students to create data visualizations, infographics, photographs and mixed media art. These results alongside the physical products that are created during the course will be presented in a SpaceTEAM.eu fair, a collaborative international exhibition open to the wider community with the hope of inspiring the public to be interested in STEM topics. Student teams will also disseminate their experiences by going to local elementary schools to give lessons about space and their project to younger children and pass the torch to the next generation of budding scientists. A project website: www.SpaceTEAM.eu will also be created, as it will host a blog kept by students during the project and report on the project on a larger scale. The aim is to engage the online community to get interested in STEM through a strong online presence with the help of the website and social media. In the first run, the course is carried out in Spain, Finland and Belgium, by a combined total of 72 students, equally divided between girls and boys. To create the framework for the project, the schools involved will do research, and once the course starts, exchange ideas, methods and best practises in introducing STEAM to the schools in an innovative way. In the years to come, all schools in Europe who want to launch a balloon themselves, will be able to join the program through a suitable platform like eTwinning. Future participants of the program will have the framework with all materials, lesson plans and guidelines, which are created during this project at their disposal. The partnering schools are already deeply involved in STEM education, but they see opportunities of professional development in the shift to a STEAM approach. The inclusion of activities involving arts and soft skills that contribute to the A of STEAM, closely align with European Key Competences such as cultural awareness and EU citizenship.
SpaceTEAM.eu is an EU-funded (Erasmus+ KA2) project which aimed to promote transnational learning for teachers and students and excite people to work and study in STEM fields by bringing a new element into STEM. Heilig Hartinstituut (Belgium), IES Adolfo Suarez (Spain) and Suininlahti School (Finland) created a project-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Maths) course for secondary school students to examine space through a wide range of interdisciplinary activities through the means of building an actual spacecraft. During the course, student teams planned, designed and created an Arduino-based measurement device that was sent into the edge of the Stratosphere with the help of a high-altitude balloon. Students examined the benefits of space exploration and atmospheric research conducting an experiment of their own, together with some imposed experiments. As a back-up we added a commercial probe ‘STRATO3’ from Stratoflights. The course was structured to resemble a professional environment with teams working on the spacecraft and alternating project managers in charge of the big picture. The digital course syllabus examines space intersectionally ranging from physics, biology and maths to arts, history and languages. Students were encouraged to pursue their passions and learn how to work as functional members of a team, as in a professional working environment. The scientific data gathered during the near space missions would have been reinterpreted by the students to create data visualizations, infographics, photographs and mixed media art, that would be presented in a SpaceTEAM.eu fair. The fair was meant to be a collaborative international exhibition open to the wider community and it aimed at inspiring the public to be interested in STEM topics. Unfortunately, due to covid-19 pandemic we could not organize the Spaceteam fair. For the same reason student teams could not go to local elementary schools to give lessons about space and their project to younger children. Luckily, we invited lots of other students from our school, teachers, parents, press, children of elementary schools, … to attend the flight preparations and launches of the four stratospheric balloons in our school. To engage the online community and get them interested in STEM, we had a strong online presence using our website and social media.