The CreaSTEAM project was conceived with a primary emphasis on the horizontal priority of SOCIAL INCLUSION and a commitment to advancing STEAM training and vocations while fostering innovative practices in the DIGITAL era. The project's core objective centered around enhancing the inclusion of students affected by diversity gaps and/or improving diversity gap education from a school perspective through innovative multidisciplinary STEAM approaches, both at the project level and within academic spaces. The challenge addressed by the project was the varying levels of interest among schools and countries in adopting new, motivating educational methodologies adapted to the rapidly evolving digital era. This involved approaches to specific problems rooted in each social environment, incorporating academic methodologies from diverse fields of knowledge to provide a multidisciplinary education catering to the diversity of schools, social environments, and students. The project sought to achieve its objectives by creating new multidisciplinary spaces, termed STEAM-Labs, aimed at training students in a motivating manner using multidisciplinary tools and paying particular attention to the diversity of their environment. The project's objectives were closely tied to its two outputs: 1) identifying, categorizing, and sharing resources, projects, and good practices in STEAM-related to improving indicators associated with diversity, such as gender, social, economic, or religious disadvantages, and various disabilities; and 2) guiding and training teachers and schools in implementing and evaluating STEAM practices in STEAM-Labs, a novel approach to multidisciplinary spaces designed to enhance vocations in STEAM fields. The project successfully compiled a comprehensive framework, accessible on the project website creasteam.eu, encompassing a range of projects impacting STEAM approaches while considering diversity gaps. Furthermore, it facilitated the transformation of educational centers by converting their spaces and laboratories into more multidisciplinary STEAM environments. This transformation addressed potential resistance within specific spaces and projects for certain student profiles, thanks to the dedication, interest, and motivation of teachers and educational institutions. To achieve this, the following steps were undertaken: 1.- Designing teacher training, conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Synchronous online training was supplemented with asynchronous materials to enhance accessibility and provide ongoing support for schools. 2.- Generating a didactic work unit, stemming from the training, serving as the central axis for developing each didactic unit in schools and ensuring potential replicability (more than 60 units plan created and shared) 3.- Collecting data at both the project's commencement and conclusion regarding the impact on STEAM vocations and inclusion in schools. 4.- Conducting a variety of dissemination activities to engage and foster collaboration with other projects and external schools, including workshops and training sessions to exchange best practices. Additionally, project processes were disseminated and published in educational and scientific forums. A significant outcome of the project is the successful promotion of the creation and adaptation of school spaces to establish STEAM-Labs. These multidisciplinary spaces, grounded in active methodologies, integrate equipment, facilities, and approaches from spaces like Fab-Labs, Media-Labs, or more specialized User-Labs. With more than 12 new spaces developed across the four project countries, these environments advocate for the integration of diverse profiles, emphasizing a multidisciplinary approach to projects or practices focused on solving social problems. A direct result of Output 2 (IO2) is the generation of a framework for the creation/adaptation of spaces and the development of STEAM good practices, emphasizing new academic methodological approaches and addressing diversity gaps. This framework is complemented by a map of initiatives, showcasing projects and a set of good practices that can be systematically replicated.
The objectives of the project were linked to the 2 outputs of the project: 1) to identify, categorize and share resources, projects, and good practices in STEAM linked to improving indicators related to diversity, such as gender, social, economic or religious disadvantages and all kinds of disabilities; and 2) to guide and train teachers and schools in the implementation and evaluation of STEAM practices in STEAM-Labs, a new approach to multidisciplinary spaces to improve vocations in STEAM fields. This project has been able to compile a complete framework and make it available in open access on its website creasteam.eu, a whole series of projects that have an impact on STEAM approaches taking into account diversity gaps and has led to a whole series of educational centers modifying their spaces and laboratories to become more multidisciplinary STEAM spaces so that the possible classical resistance of specific spaces and projects of certain student profiles are being torn down, thanks to the training, interest, and motivation of teachers and centers.
The project was presented based on the horizontal priority of SOCIAL INCLUSION and the priorities of improving STEAM training and vocations and creating innovative practices in the DIGITAL era. The aim of the project focused on improving the inclusion of students affected by diversity gaps and/or improving diversity gap education from a school perspective through new multidisciplinary STEAM approaches, both at project level and in academic spaces. The need for the project was a challenge. Not all schools, nor in all countries, are looking for new educational methodologies that are motivating and adapted to a new eminently digital era, with approaches to specific problems that are close to each social environment, mixing academic methodologies in different fields of knowledge for a multidisciplinary education that considers the diversity of schools, social environments, and students. By creating new multidisciplinary spaces, which we have called STEAM-Labs, we have sought to achieve this objective: to train students in a motivating way with multidisciplinary tools and paying special attention to the diversity of the environment.