The Education for Sustainable Development and STEM Education are 2 major priorities for the EU. As climate change, overpopulation, and inequalities begin to take their toll on our planet and on global human development, the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) emerged as a response in order to change attitudes and behaviours and mobilize people around the objective of Sustainability. On the Other hand, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education is key for an increasingly complex knowledge-based society. “Knowledge of and about science are integral to preparing our population to be actively engaged and responsible citizens, creative and innovative, able to work collaboratively and fully aware of and conversant with the complex challenges facing society” (Science Education for Responsible Citizenship, EC, 2015). Both Sustainable Development (SD) and STEM should be addressed from an early age. At school, children must be motivated to learn maths and science and to imagine working in these fields, and to learn about sustainability and develop attitudes and behaviours that are in line with the UN’s SD Goals. The dominant approach to STEM Education and Education for Sustainable Development in schools is still teacher-driven. This in part is responsible for the students’ lack of interest in pursuing STEM studies and careers and for not exploring to a greater length the genuine interest of children in SD topics. In this context, education of STEM and Sustainable topics must take on new models with a higher prevalence of experiential learning and that can bring together schools and other actors in the local community. The project MiniOpenLabs proposes to set-up and test a different methodology with a higher prevalence of experiential learning and relying on the collaboration between science and technology organisations, enterprises and civil society, to ensure relevant and meaningful engagement of all societal actors with science and increase the uptake of science studies, citizen science initiatives and science-based careers, employability and competitiveness. The main goal of the project is to set-up and test an open community and hands-on approach to Sustainable Development and STEM Education of children (6-12 years old), comprising: • MiniOpenLabs: the MiniOpenLabs are small laboratories, open to the local community, where children, under the guidance of teachers or other educators (including parents), may engage in STEM-based projects on sustainable development. • Activity Book: this Book will contain a set of STEM-based projects on sustainable development that may be carried out in the MiniOpenLabs. • Workshops: includes creating guidelines and running different events to capacitate teachers on the MiniOpenLabs approach and to involve the local community on STEM education activities. The project brings together Higher Education Institutions, a Centre of Engineering and Product Development and Schools from 3 countries – Spain, Portugal and Greece: • Universidade Rey Juan Carlos • CEIPSO Maestro Rodrigo • CEiiA Centre of Engineering and Product Development • Scholé • University of Western Macedonia • Anatolia Educational Group
To meet the new challenges of STEM education, it is necessary to engage elementary students in the STEM vision and provide all teachers with appropriate professional development opportunities. Teachers need to be encouraged to work together to create innovative ways to successfully integrate this multidisciplinary way of thinking and learning. It is clear that the implementation of MIniOpenLabs favored the motivation of children for scientific-technological subjects, as well as the improvement of teacher training in the corresponding areas. To meet the challenges of STEM education, it is necessary to promote adequate professional development opportunities in the academic community. The implementation of the main project results can be considered as a useful tool to increase the digital competencies not only of children and teachers, but also of the local school community. Overall it will contributed to: Promote an approach to STEM education that relies in active-learning methods and off-class learning opportunities, Demonstrate the benefits and stimulate a closer relation between different actors in the society around STEM education, Develop STEM (and SD) literacy and competences of children and educators.
Our main objective with this project was to establish and test a different methodology with a greater predominance of experiential learning and based on collaboration between science and technology organizations, companies and civil society. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education is key to an increasingly complex knowledge-based society. At school, children need to be motivated to learn math and science and to imagine themselves working in these fields, as well as to learn about sustainability and develop attitudes and behaviors in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In this context, education in STEM and sustainable development issues must adopt new models with a greater predominance of active teaching methods from an interdisciplinary perspective that can bring together schools and other stakeholders from the local community. Furthermore, the development of this project aims to ensure relevant and meaningful engagement of all stakeholders in science and to increase our students' interest in science studies, citizen science initiatives and science-based careers, employability and competitiveness. The MiniOpenLabs (MOL) project proposed to set-up and test a different methodology with a higher prevalence of experiential learning and relying on the collaboration between science and technology organisations, enterprises and civil society, to ensure relevant and meaningful engagement of all societal actors with science and increase the uptake of science studies, citizen science initiatives and science-based careers, employability and competitiveness.