Our project aimed to: create opportunities for sustainable ECEC services; develop the STEAM Challenge educational blog and YouTube channel; raise awareness of environmental issues and 21st-century skills among all participants. We emphasize two general perspectives: the educational one — a preschool-adapted methodology; and the material one — establishing the STEAM Laboratory equipped for early childhood education. Thus, our goals were: -to increase the quality and attractiveness of STEAM activities for early childhood; -to develop teachers’ professional skills; -to build strategic partnerships among public/private institutions and NGOs; Specific objectives: -to create our own innovative STEAM program through workshops; -to develop a good-practice guide with year-round activity examples and suitable methodology; -to promote good-practice examples on the project blog and YouTube channel; -to raise environmental awareness by integrating environmental education into the STEAM preschool curriculum; -to create a list of STEAM teaching resources; -to support teachers in developing digital and STEAM-teaching skills; -to improve preschoolers’ learning outcomes through experiential learning -to expand our transnational professional network
The story of this project began nine years ago, when preschool teachers from five countries formed an eTwinning team that highlighted the STEM approach — the first spark. The variety of themes, the challenges teachers faced in their classrooms, and our strong collaboration encouraged us to expand our learning into an Erasmus+ project - Little STEMists. We believe that dedicated teachers always feel the need to learn more, and this is where the STEAM Challenge began, a new Erasmus+ partnership. The word “Challenge,” central to the project’s title, reflects the many questions and difficulties we faced: the complexity of the topics, how to integrate them in ways that connect learning with real-life experience, how to design effective activities,and how to choose materials that make learning meaningful and engaging for young children. The experience gained from earlier projects gave us confidence that we could create teaching practices that inspire educators in our kindergartens and beyond. As the STEAM approach is highly appealing to today’s children, we wanted to study it in depth, to test and improve early-childhood classroom practices, and to share our experience with all who are passionate — teachers, children and parents.