STEAM JAM

Project summary

It is estimated that the 65% of current pupils will be working in positions that do not currently exist. According to EU and OECD, most of these new jobs are international, high-skilled and require innovative competences in STE(A)M, with a focus on Digital Technologies. However, EUROSTAT (2017) shows that in 2015, about one fifth of 15 year olds showed insufficient abilities in reading, maths and science. A step backward compared to 2012. Therefore in every participating European country we see that primary schools are asked to focus on STE(A)M so that children are getting more interested and prepared for a further education or even profession. There is a lack of high-quality STEAM-material and knowledge of innovative approaches based on open and creative education. How do we implement STEAM in our daily school life? How can we enhance our lessons in these topics? How can we use the expertise of other European schools to make a STEAM-project attractive and effective for pupils as well as for teachers? First goal of our project is to stimulate STEAM already in pre-primary and primary school with the hope that this interest will filter through to secondary school level and even university, strengthening the competitiveness of European countries and developing our children’s learning competences by promoting creativity and problem solving.. Second goal is to improve and foster teachers’ dialogue and collaboration, beginning a discussion on Education and Methods with a focus on Open Education, Creative and Digital Atelier, Flipped classrooms, atc… for giving better answers to forthcoming needs and meet future standards; Third goal is to raise awareness of the importance of Europe’s cultural heritage. We want to create a project that fosters intercultural dialogue between European teachers and pupils from 4-12 y.o. with a focus on scientific culture and famous personalities to develop European citizenship from an early age. The six partners are all pre-primary and primary schools and have all build up specific STEAM expertise during the last years. We found each other through earlier collaboration and by a call on eTwinning where we filtered the most motivated and expertised partners. We had a preparatory visit in Wales where we worked intensively and enthusiastic on the preparation of this project. When we discovered during breakfast that three out of four coordinators had a ticket to attend a Pearl Jam concert in their own country, the name of our project was born: STEAM JAM: a tasteful mix of STEAM. To obtain our objectives we chose for five activities, inspired by famous Steamjammers (Hack, Constantinescu, Panamarenko, Archimede, Hawking and Calatrava). We will let children get in contact with their past and make them aware that THEY could be the Steam Jammers of the future. These were the base of the following activities: “Challenge’: for the kids is a kind of teaser to let others learn more about the country. It consists of a package with realia to present the country and also a question that needs to be answered. For instance as Wales chose the story of a dragon (the symbol of Wales) that lost his fire. Pupils of each school look for a creative and STEAM based way to give him his fire back. The results are published so that everybody can see what their European friends created; ‘Missions’, one for each of the four agegroups (pre-primary, grade 1-2, grade 3-4, grade 5-6). This is a toolbox with a STEAM activity, consisting of a short manual for the teacher and a manual for the children to guide them through the STEAM-mission. The results/answers of these Missions are also digitally published. “Trials” for high gifted pupils who need more challenges. They have to solve these STEAMprojects on their own by collaborating with pupils from the partnerschools. In every school there is a teacher responsible for the collaborations and communications between these fast-workers. Short-term staff training (Italy, Romania, Belgium and Greece). During three days teachers from the six countries come together to have workshops and visits built around the objectives of this program. Short-term exchanges of groups of pupils (Wales and Spain). During these visits the children will have the chance to meet their fellow Steam Jammers who they worked with during the past year. They will show their results, have workshops together and visit interesting STEAM venues for children. The project lasts for two years. In every year we work with the 3 Challenges, 3 Missions and 3 Trials, 2 short-term staff trainings and 1 short-term pupils meeting. We develop our own evaluation tool STEAM JAM MONITOR to measure objectives’ achievement. This material can be used for years after. Moreover this project will foster the teachers’ motivation and skills to give STEAM-lesson strengthened by their European partners. And the children? They will create their own innovative job we cannot even imagine yet.