Early Childhood Education and Care has been used as an intervention strategy to improve the lives and development of specific groups, particularly children living in deprived circumstances, and to ensure a “good start” (OECD, 2011). This is even more true for STEM education. Skills in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) are becoming an increasingly important part of basic literacy in today’s knowledge economy. KLab4Kids (Kitchen Laboratorium for Kids) is a project aimed at enhancing the quality of ECEC by strengthening the scientific and methodological skills of both initial and in-service preschool teachers/educators through integrated multidisciplinary approaches (including pedagogy, neuroscience and STEM). The goal is to improve educators' curricula by supporting them deliver high quality teaching, using innovative methods to teach sciences and to create a positive and curious attitude in children since the early years of their lives, thus preventing under-skilling in STEM. KLab4Kids will involve educators in helping very young children (age 2-6) integrate knowledge across disciplines, connecting science to the real world and to their own interests and goals. Specifically they will help them connect cooking to science, using ludic approaches to help them see food as an object of investigation. Educators will encourage children to explore basic science concepts through a “poor” lab (made of things that are also available at home) and to have them relate what is observed or discussed at school to the world outside the classroom. The participants - students, i.e. pre-service teachers and inservice teachers - will work in different environments - online, at university and in schools (fieldwork experiences) - to select, filter and test resources for effective STEM learning/teaching. The consortium is composed of 6 partners coming from 5 European countries: Italy, Poland, Spain, Ireland and Germany. Four partners (AIK, LUMSA, DCU and UIC) are universities (or univ. centres, services, departments) with a strong experience in teacher training and Early Childhood Education. They will take part to all the activities related to STEM teaching and teacher training. FPM will coordinate the project and LUH will host the community in LearnWeb, an online platform used and customised for teacher training. The main goal of the KLab4Kids project is to allow the participating organisations to develop and reinforce ECEC curricula and networks of schools, teachers, universities and courses devoted to teacher initial training in order to promote an international exchange of best practices and experiences in fostering active learning of sciences in Early Childhood Education, as well as encouraging teachers to find new, modern and interactive methods to effectively teach science. One of the strengths of the project is the creation of a community of practice and learning aimed at re-using and/or creating resources for STEM learning/ stem teaching. It will be composed of different national groups and of one international groups. The community will remain open after the end of the project, producing benefits even beyond the duration of the research and involving an increasing number of users. Another important point is the involvement of very young children and their parents: the methodology used to involve very young children, mainly focused on a “hands-on” approach, starting from processes that everyone is familiar with: those of food transformation in the kitchen and of cooking. Through different phases of work (online discussion and fieldwork experiences) selected resources and newly created activities/learning paths will be validated and included in a final Toolkit, including a set of publications (“Teaching Set”, t and the “Guidelines for STEM teaching at pre-school level” addressed to different groups). In line with an important benchmark of EU strategies for 2020 (at least 95% of children - from 4 to compulsory school age - should participate in early childhood education), the project addresses the need for a systemic and integrated approach to Early Childhood education and Care, by identifying key issues and questions for an effective teaching of STEM at preschool level. In the short term, the project will create a map of the European best practices and leaders in innovative science education methods, contributing to improve HE curricula on ECEC. It will foster the creation of networks for the dissemination of best practices. In the medium term, the project will coordinate and leverage Member States activities with respect to innovative approaches in the field of science education in Early Childhood Education. As a result, in the long term, the action will contribute towards achieving the Europe 2020 education target by improving STEM skills among young people – less than 15% of pupils under-performing by 2020 – and increasing the range of innovative products that reflect societal needs.
Skills in STEM are becoming an increasingly important part of basic literacy in today’s knowledge society. In line with an important benchmark of EU strategies for 2020 (at least 95% of children - from 4 to compulsory school age - should participate in early childhood education), the project addressed the need for a systemic and integrated approach to ECEC by identifying key issues and questions for an effective STEM education. The project consortium, coordinated by Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow, included 5 partners coming from 4 European countries: IT, PL, ES, IR. The project aimed at enhancing the quality of ECEC by A/ strengthening the scientific and methodological skills of preschool teachers by providing them with a collection of innovative resources and creating social network to exchange ideas and support each other in implementing innovations in their own environment; B/ supporting scientific thinking development in young children by providing them with positive, joyful experiences in learning science, strengthening their engagement and cognitive curiosity, thus preventing under-skilling in STEM learning in the future; C/ supporting parents involvement; D/ raising an awareness of school managers and policy makers responsible for implementing STEM ideas into the preschool core-curricula. The following actions were taken within the project frame: 1/ The „Report” from international comparative research was published - the diagnosis of teacher’s knowledge and opinions about the possibilities to introduce STEM education on a preschool level. The diagnosis included data on both, qualitative and quantitive analyses, along with the selection of important literature available in English and national languages and comparative analyses of core-curricula in project countries. As a result, the matrix of core STEM skills for preschool children was designed; 2/ The collection of STEM resources for young children (Teaching Set) was designed and published on project website. The idea of a “poor” lab (equipped with easily accessible tools, materials and reagents) was used to relate STEM activities with food and cooking process - „Preschool kitchen as a scientific laboratory”. Thanks to such connection STEM activities offered in the project might be easily re-created at home environment. Exploring basic scientific concepts related to food (e.g oxidation, fermentation, CO2, sweetness, density etc.) should not only help children to perceive food as an object of scientific investigations, but also make learning experiences meaningful, realistic, useful in real life context, and as subsequently develop healthy eating habits; 3/ Learning Communities were created on different social media - 4 national and 1 international: to test and evaluate the Teaching Set. An international audience was invited to verify the resources collected by project team, exchange ideas, search for new innovative methods of teaching, design new resources. With the help of teachers network video instructions were created, to provide methodological support to everyone interested in using STEM activities in real-life context. The community will remain open after the end of the project, producing benefits even beyond the duration of the research and involving an increasing number of users. 4/ Participants of Learning Community were invited to test educational effectiveness of STEM resources with children. Learning Pathways were designed as a flexible tool allowing teachers to perceive STEM education as a long-term process rather than a single experiment. Each Learning Pathway was described as a logical sequence of lesson scenarios - a kind of intellectual road which needs to be taken by a learner to master certain skills or concepts. 5/ Finally, all the described elements were integrated into one interactive, user-friendly Toolkit providing the teachers and educators with both, methodological and theoretical guidelines for early STEM education. The Toolkit is now available in 5 languages: PL, EN, ES, CA, and IT. Generally circa 1881 participants were involved in project actions, including 135 inservice teacher, 579 pre-service teachers, 636 parents and 566 children. The Klab4Kids website not only created a map of the European best practices in innovative science education methods which allows the participating universities to reinforce ECEC curricula by introducing STEM ideas into existing courses. Currently it serves as a tool to promote an international exchange of best practices in fostering active STEM learning, and to encourage teachers to find new, modern and interactive methods for effectively science teaching. In the long term, the Klab4Kids action will also contribute towards achieving the Europe 2020 education target by improving STEM skills among young people – less than 15% of pupils under-performing by 2020 – and increasing the range of innovative products that reflect societal needs.