Pollution! Find a STEM solution! is a cross-curricular project which aims at developing students’ STEM and ICT skills and motivating students to take sustainable actions for themselves and future generations.
Pollution! Find a STEM solution! is a two-year cross-curricular project at five elementary schools in Europe. Schools are located in the Czech Republic, Croatia, France, Poland and Spain. The project stemmed from the need to develop students’ skills in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and ICT.
The main objectives of this project are to increase students’ motivation for STEM subjects, raise interest in STEM education and careers and introduce them to all available new trends in technology, engineering and science in their region by visiting clean technology industries and strengthening links with them. It also introduces some future digital jobs and integrates more ICT into classroom practice as indirect preparation for rapid technological changes. Furthermore, the project highlights the importance of solving global environmental issues and improves knowledge in the areas of sustainable development and renewable energy. It develops collaborative partnership between schools and the wider community in formal, non-formal and informal learning. In addition, it supports multilingualism by publishing Open Educational Resources in eight different languages.
Project activities are divided into four categories:
STEM ACTIVITIES: are focused on building devices for measuring air, light and noise pollution in students’ schools and homes. The data is analysed through a scientific method and the results compared with those of their peers in order to find a solution to pollution.
E-SKILLS, DIGITAL LITERACY and DIGITAL JOBS: introduce career opportunities in STEM and ICT, meetings with scientists and engineers, the development of 21st century skills and e-skills to make students more employable in the future. During the digital month students from each school included in the project choose one Web 2.0 tool that they find very useful and present it to their peers in other countries through the eTwinning platform or at the project’s meetings.
CLEAN TECHNOLOGY and CLEAN ENERGY: activities give students the chance to build windmill models and solar collectors and visit facilities for clean technology and engineering.
CULTURAL AWARENESS AND THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION: is achieved through collaboration and communication, exploration of the culture and the history of countries involved in the project.
Collaborative design tools and numerous other Web 2.0 tools are used to produce Open Educational Resources about the subject of pollution which are available for download. Their aim is to foster the quality of educational outcomes and to support long-term effects on the participating schools and participants. The goal is to motivate students to take action in order to increase air and light quality at schools for themselves and future generations. Students are taught how to make ecological cleaning products and to organise workshops for other students. As part of this, they create an informative eco-friendly corner with purifying plants which they also take care of.
Pedagogical practices that teachers have applied in their work include project-based, child-directed learning and also peer-learning methods.
This project is a beneficial experience for all participants and an important networking platform with the partners and local communities.
Basic information
Country: Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Poland, Spain
No information targeted for researchers is available at this moment.
Five future classroom scenarios and Open Educational Resources (OER) have been developed as part of the project. They are dedicated to the subjects of investigating and measuring air, light and noise pollution, as well as analysing the measurements through scientific methods (calculating relative and absolute errors) with accompanying digital content (worksheets, instructions to assemble the measuring devices and program the LEGO robot, a booklet on making eco-friendly cleaning agents, etc.).
Description:Publication that compiles the workshops, experiments and demonstrations carried out during the “Finde Científico 2017” (<em>Scientific Weekend</em>) event.
Description:Polinizapp is a game that simulates the pollination process of flowers in nature. The player becomes a pollinating insect with two objectives: to get life and to accumulate points. Life is produced by contact with the flowers, since they have pollen and...
Description:This book gives access to the bank of activities and teaching resources based on the movies studied during the project. The basic purpose is to help teachers to teach maths through movies.
Description:This Teacher Professional Development programme provides teachers with tools to reflect on gender and the opportunity to change their practice to become more gender inclusive in their teaching.
Description:What is a star and what shape is it? Students explore both artistic and scientific representations of stars, and learn that stars are like the sun but much further away and make their own star hat.
Description:Street lights of the same type will look brighter when they are close to you, and less bright when they are farther away. The same applies to astronomical objects: a given star will look brighter to a nearby observer than to an observer far away. In both...
Description:When you add water to effervescent (fizzy) tablets or baking powder, bubbles are formed: a gas is produced. You can use this gas to inflate a balloon without blowing it up yourself. What kind of gas is it? Let us collect this gas and analyse it through...
Description:This activity proposes different small experiments and discussions to show that in the summer it is cooler by the sea than inland and that water cools off more slowly than soil.
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