STEAM integrates five disciplines (S-Science, T-Technology, E-Engineering, A-Art, M-Mathematics) into one cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications. Current project with acronym “STEAMus” activities focuses on a different aspects of music technology and has specified objectives that students should understand after completion. Musical instrument research focuses on analyzing the variations between instruments (strings, wood, brass, percussion) and how these differences lead to changes in the spectrum of sound, waveform, and frequency and how the instrument sound is produced. Six schools from six different countries are involved in the project: Estonia (Tartu Raatuse School), Italy (L'Istituto Comprensivo Leone Caetani di Cisterna), Hungary (Csongrádi Batsányi János Gimnázium, Szakgimnázium és Kollégium), Spain (The Colegio Santa Ana de Villalonga), Bulgaria (Comprehensive School “Geo Milev”) and Poland (Szkola Podstawowa Zwiazku Nauczycielstwa Polskiego). Five partners are responsible for one learning teaching and training activity week and Estonia as coordinator will host one joint staff training event. Naturally, due to the complexity of each field may overlap in some areas. Within their chosen field, each partner has the most experience, so their role is to support and educate other partners. The project's primary participants are students between the ages of 11-15. Schools will have a proportion of its teachers involved as well as school staff, parents of students, local community, scientists etc. We determined the goals of our project during the initial student assessment: improving basic skills with focus on STEAM disciplines, increasing intrinsic motivation for the use of ICT in learning and teaching, enhancing the ability of students to collaborate through English, while enhancing their foreign language skills, raising the variety of extracurricular activities in schools and making them part of school curricula, enhancing the experience of students in areas required for further education and stimulated by a multicultural community. Through all this the development of relevant and high-quality skills and competencies among the participants will be developed and encouraged. The project events in which students and teachers will be engaged are seminars, presentations and meetings. They will prepare International Music Day and support International Day of Women and Girls in Science, visit science centres, set up scientific lectures, perform experiments and field studies, build musical instruments and play on these and create experimental tools and tutorials. Students will develop a sense of accomplishment and progress by engaging in the project, using new working methods, expand their horizons and gain new friends. Holding project events will improve their motivation to work in the STEAM field as they will be able to directly see the results of their research through immediate practical practice. They will achieve better results in school as they will use new methods of learning and in addition develop basic competencies in the STEAM area. The production of STEAM activity will be building speaker, synthesizer, xylophone, one string guitar, castanets, boomwhackers tutorials to teach a wider public etc. Students will also learn various skills required for practical work and improve the use of English by communicating and introducing their work during LTTAs. For the purpose of gaining new knowledge, the methods used in the project will be analysis, problem-solving, simulation, practical work, and discussion. Students should reach high levels of awareness through research that will allow conceptual understanding of subjects that need to be learned. Computational thinking is an important approach that will be used by students, consisting of three parts: defining the problem and its theoretical forms, splitting it into several phases-smaller problems and finding a systematic way to solve them. Together with students, participating teachers will benefit from learning new working methods and other teachers in their schools will benefit from being provided with those methods. Teachers will enhance the quality of their later work with new approaches and influence future generations education through them. This will reduce the number of reticent school teachers. Schools are going to be more modern, more competitive and more cooperative. Long-term benefits include increasing the curriculum of schools with extracurricular activities (for example Science Club).
STEAM integrates five disciplines (S-Science, T-Technology, E-Engineering, A-Art, M-Mathematics) into one cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications. Project with acronym STEAMus activities focused on different aspects of music technology and had specified objectives students should understand after completion. Musical instrument research focused on analyzing the variations between instruments (strings, wood, brass, percussion) and how these differences lead to changes in the spectrum of sound, waveform and frequency, how the instrument sound is produced. At the planning stage of the project six schools from six countries were involved: Estonia (Tartu Raatuse School), Italy (L'Istituto Comprensivo Leone Caetani di Cisterna), Hungary (Csongrádi Batsányi János Gimnázium, Szakgimnázium és Kollégium), Spain (The Colegio Santa Ana de Villalonga), Bulgaria (Comprehensive School “Geo Milev”) and Poland (Szkola Podstawowa Zwiazku Nauczycielstwa Polskiego). Due to the difficult year for their management team (because of coronavirus they had to split the groups of students, meaning they had to work more) unfortunately the management team and teachers or the Spanish partner school were not able to handle the project anymore and they officially rejected the participation in September 2020. We had a crisis meeting with all the other partners and all agreed to continue in the group of five schools and were ready to fulfill all the tasks and reach all the objectives of the project. Four partners were responsible for one short-term exchange of groups of pupils and Estonia as coordinator was hosting one short term joint staff training event. All Spanish school responsibilities were divided among other partners, in order to carry out all planned activities, goals and objectives. The project's primary participants were students between the age of 11-15 and for some mutual activities the involved students were even between the age of 7-10. Schools had a proportion of its teachers involved as well as school staff, parents of students, local community, scientists etc. We determined the goals of our project during the initial student assessment: improving basic skills with focus on STEAM disciplines, increasing intrinsic motivation for the use of ICT in learning and teaching, enhancing the ability of students to collaborate through English, while enhancing their foreign language skills, raising the variety of extracurricular activities in schools and making them part of school curricula, enhancing the experience of students in areas required for further education and stimulated by a multicultural community. Through all this the development of relevant and high-quality skills and competencies among the participants was developed and encouraged. The project events included seminars, presentations and meetings. They prepared for International Music Day and supported International Day of Women and Girls in Science, visited science centers, set up scientific lectures, performed experiments and field studies, built musical instruments and played on these and created experimental tools and tutorials. Students developed a sense of accomplishment and progress using new methods, expanded their horizons and gained new friends. Holding project events improved their motivation to work in the STEAM field as they were able to directly see the results of their research through immediate practical practice. Students achieved better results in school as they used new methods of learning and in addition developed basic competencies in the STEAM area. With the production of STEAM activities students and teachers built speakers, synthesizer, xylophone, one string guitar, castanets, and learned to use boomwhackers for presenting them for a wider teaching audience. Students learned various skills which were required for practical work and improved the use of English by communicating and introduced their work during LTTAs. For the purpose of gaining new knowledge, the methods used in the project were analysis, problem-solving, simulation, practical work, and discussion. Students’ reached high levels of awareness through research which allowed conceptual understanding of STEAM discipline. Also, for implementing students’ computational thinking process, we used with students a three step approach: theoretical background, defining a problem, and splitting it into several smaller phases problems while finding a systematic way to solve them. Teachers benefited from learning new methods and enlightened their colleagues with these methods. Teachers have enhanced the quality of their profession with new approaches and are currently more able to influence future generations' education through new ideas. Schools had the opportunity to open new extra curricular clubs for STEAM influenced/interested students. Project webpage where you can find all the manuals of our activities and video addition - https://steamus.weebly.com/