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MEET THE WINNERS!

Below we present the winners of the competitions organised within the 2022 STEM Discovery Campaign. You can find a brief description of each of the competitions and the names of the winners with a summary of their winning entries.

This year’s campaign was supported by 110 schools, projects and organisations, and had the widest outreach since the first STEM Discovery Week. The activities were happening well beyond European borders! Tens of thousands of teachers, students and schools worked hard between February and April 2022 to put their schools on the map and showcase all their creative STEM activities. We are very proud of their dedication and the quality of their work!


 

Scientix organised two competitions this year. The first competition invited participants to organise (online) activities that promote STEM in the context of any STEM subject in class and write a blog post in English on the STEM Discovery Campaign Blog once the activity was done. The second Scientix competition encouraged participants to plan activities based on resources available in the Scientix Resource Repository. For inspiration on how you can make your STEM teaching more engaging, and more information on the winning activities, you can visit the SDC blog here.

 

WINNERS

2022 STEM Discovery Campaign results

 

Among the 24 winners, several teachers received special recognition for their activities:

  • Award for creativity: Mario Di Fonza (Italy), “Grilli che c(a)ontano! (Crickets that sing/matter!)”
  • Award for impact: Stavroula Skiada (Greece), “Reducing energy, increasing sustainability”
  • Award for inclusivity: Selçuk Yusuf Arslan (Turkey), “STEM stands together”
  • Award for technical difficulty: Georgios Chatzigeorgiou (Greece), “Comparison of dye-sensitized solar cells with various dyes of plant origin”
  • Award for applicability: Silvana J Binova (North Macedonia), “Is 100euro = 100euro always and everywhere”
  • Award for originality: Aleksandra Filipovic (Serbia), “Following Peter Pan’s shadow”

See all winning entries below.

 

Touristic trip and challenges towards the ecological city

Erviola Konomi (Albania)

This activitiy describes a game integrating coding using Microbit through a series of challenges that the robot Edmondo needs to successfully pass in search of an ecological city. Students, focusing on global issues such as Climate Change, declare Edmodo the winner if it finds and builds an ecological city. As part of the SDC22, a STEM conference was also organised.

Blog

 

A lesson in central symmetry
Yavor Yakimov (Bulgaria)

A lecture was organised in a secondary school in Bulgaria. The aim was to use a specially created online game, based on a rectangular board divided in unit cells with a center of symmetry, for students to experience this mathematical concept in practice through gamification. Challenge accepted!

Blog

 

Not every water is H2O
Kristina Krtalić (Croatia)

To celebrate World Water Day, primary school students from Croatia put into practice their observation skills, teamwork, and curiosity. They learnt about the characteristics, use, and importance of water through fun experiments and research activities.

Blog

 

STEM for all in many ways
Álvaro Molina Ayuso (Spain)

These activities approach STEM education for secondary school students with disabilities to facilitate their transition to working life in a kitchen-related occupation. The Spanish students created a virtual tour of their place of work and study thanks to a virtual environment creation resource. This collaborative experience made STEM more accessible and engaging.

Blog

 

Energy around us (L’energia attorno a noi)
Marina Stanojlovic Mircic (Serbia)

Instead of following their textbooks, these Italian students and their teacher explored the topic of energy sources and consumption through engaging classroom activities. The activities were inspired by the learning Scenario “Getting to know energy” which can be found in the Scientix Resource Repository.

Blog

 

Families meet STEM
Zeynep Er (Turkey)

The aim of this event is to introduce families to STEM as parents create different designs with simple materials, together with their daughters. At the end, families will have gained an improved STEM awareness and will have realized that a way to spend quality time with their children at home is possible through STEM activities.

Blog

 

V International Lviv STEM Festival during the war in Ukraine
Olha Doskochynska (Ukraine)

This year, Scientix Ambassador Olha Doskochynska organized the V International Lviv STEM Festival for teachers and students of Ukraine in Lviv (Ukraine). The purpose of this festival was to promote science, technology, mathematics, and art.

Blog

 

We make our own recycled paper
Sadık Uslu (Turkey)

Secondary school students collected paper waste and created their own recycled paper in the school’s laboratory. Thanks to this activity, students shifted attitudes and learnt about the benefits of recycling for the environment, as well as for society.

Blog

 

Let’s get together with Gather.Town – utilising socially responsive technology in teaching
Ella Rakovac Bekeš (Croatia)

In this interdisciplinary STEM lesson, secondary school students practised vectors and associated mathematical concepts, got familiar with the region’s intangible cultural heritage, and learned about Croatian literacy. All of this was accomplished in a distant educational context.

Blog

 

Start discovering Arduino!
Cristina Iulia (Romania)

To carry out the activity, this school leveraged the Scientix Repository resource "Coding in STEM Education": SMB - Science Magic Box. The purpose of the activity was to train students ages 15-17 in robotics and programming by using the Arduino microcontroller and sensors, and for them to realize that some daily activities can be improved using different programmable devices, which they can build on their own.

Blog

 

Air driven cars
Kismet Türkan Kurnaz (Turkey)

This STEM lesson plan uses Project-based Learning (PBL) for students to create vehicles with different designs. The primary school students worked on vehicles that could produce their own energy using natural resources.

Blog

 

Step by step to solution with STEM
Şerife Takmaz (Turkey)

This eTwinning STEM project was inspired by the “A Drop of Water Makes a Difference” learning scenario that can be found in the Scientix Resource Repository. The project involved 13 teachers and 250 students from Turkey, Italy, Portugal, and Poland. The activities helped the 10 and 11-year-old students to increase their awareness of pollution and the water scarcity problem.

Blog

 

The microplastic detectives
Stavroula Skiada (Greece)

Based on the Scientix Repository resource of Futurum: "Detecting Microplastics in a great lakes watershed", students implemented an interdisciplinary project of the STEAM methodology to raise awareness of the adverse effects of the widespread presence of microplastics in the oceans and in the food chain. They gained a basic understanding of the plastic life cycle, its fragmentation to microplastics, and the variety of origin sources for plastic particles, as well as participated in scientific research about microplastics (microbeads) in cosmetic products, and in experiments to discover hidden microplastics.

Blog

 

Music and STEAM is not magic… it's part of real life
Costantina Cossu (Italy)

"Music and STEAM is not magic… it's part of real life" focuses on the links between music and STEM, and their implementations in STEM teaching and learning, while including examples of two activities (creating a 3D-printed fully functional musical instrument, and exploring the pyhsical effect of music on the movement of soapy bubbles). Based on two resources from the Scientix Resource Repository.

Blog

 

Emergency response to forest fires and early warning system
Rabia Kilinç (Turkey)

With the Emergency Response to Forest Fires and Early Warning System in mind, this workshop activity is aimed at raising awareness of natural disasters in students. Through STEM learning, students are expected to produce solutions to preventing forest fires.

Blog

 

Didactic intervention with the method of Flipped Classroom
Evangelos Zikidis (Greece)

The Flipped Classroom method allowed these Greek primary school students to engage in discussions, teamwork, and experiments to learn about renewable energy sources. The use of the inverted classroom increased the interest and participation of the students in the learning process, click below to see the results!

Blog

 

Water, float or sink
Ana Bakic (Serbia)

"Water, float or sink" showcases several water-based experiments for ages 2-5. Students learn how to purify water, which objects float and sink, what is the link between mass and floatability, and how to build a submarine. Based on the Scientix Repository resource "Sink or float".

Blog

 

Why STEM Education For Sustainable Development Goals?
Çelebi Kalkan (Turkey)

Primary school students from Turkey engaged in various STEM activities to find possible solutions to some sustainable development goals (SDGs). They also celebrated important days, such as World Wildlife Day and World Forestry Day!

Blog

 

In addition, several teachers received special recognition for their blog entries:

STEM stands together
Selçuk Yusuf Arslan (Turkey), Award for Inclusivity

STEM Stands Together is an initiative that brings together students from different countries (local students from Turkey and refugee students in Turkey from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran) and enables them to participate in a joint workshop via STEM.

Blog

 

Comparison of dye-sensitized solar cells with various dyes of plant origin
Georgios Chatzigeorgiou (Greece), Award for Technical Difficulty

"In this work, we study an alternative technology for the production of electricity from solar energy, the photosensitized with pigmented solar cells (DSSC or Grätzel cells). In our proposed activity, students will make some typical Grätzel cells. The differentiation of our study concerns the photosensitizer, where instead of the expensive and toxic ruthenium dyes usually listed in the literature, we will try plant dyes from different plants", says teacher Georgios Chatzigeorgiou about their classroom activity.

Blog

 

Grilli che c(a)ontano! (Crickets that sing/matter!)
Mario di Fonza (Italy), Award for Creativity

“Grilli che c(a)ontano” is a multidisciplinary activity that involves the STEM disciplines: mathematics, physics, science and biology, and its focus is the study of climatic factors and the causes which are leading to an increase in temperatures, with the significant correlation of the temperature variation of the globe.

Blog

 

Is 100euro = 100euro always and everywhere
Silvana J Binova (North Macedonia), Award for Applicability

Math is not only about counting money, it is important for many more reasons. By using the resource from Eurostat "Statistics in the classroom - prices" found on the Scientix Resource Repository, students learn about inflation, while implementing their knowledge about percentage, data, graphs, statistic.

Blog

 

Reducing energy, increasing sustainability
Stavroula Skiada (Greece), Award for Impact

The STEM project “The Energy Awareness” was integrated into the cross-thematic Greek curriculum. It aimed to introduce students to basic skills of programming, computational and critical thinking, collaboration, and decision making. As a result, the primary school students decided to raise awareness in the school community in pursuit of the sustainable well-being goal.

Blog

 

Following Peter Pan’s shadow
Aleksandra Filipovic (Serbia), Award for Originality

"Following Peter Pan’s shadow " aims to introduce students to the concept of the shadow through a series of playful activities based on the story of Peter Pan and the Scientix Resource Repository resource "Shadow art". Working in small groups/pairs on digitized material in the form of a Wix site, students on several virtual stations deal with the problem of separating Peter Pan's shadow from him, research and express their opinion, get acquainted with types of light sources and create shadows using them, explore how to form a shadow, how to reduce/increase the shadow, sketch their settings, and draw conclusions about the formation of shadows.

Blog

 

The "Clean Tech Competition" is a unique, worldwide research and design challenge for pre-college youth. The program encourages scientific understanding of real-world issues and the integration of environmentally responsible energy sources. For the 2022 competition, the "Spellman HV Clean Tech Challenge" invites students to identify a problem with our natural world and resource use that they want to change, and innovate a sustainable solution for it. Click below to see the finalist teams of the competition!

Finalists

 

The “Look Up – Cloud Hunters” competition invited young students (age 5-11) and teachers to explore the possibilities of the mobile application „GLOBE Observer“ by observing clouds and atmosphere conditions, and taking photos of interesting clouds by mobile phone camera or tablet as an art activity with STE(A)M approach – and become the "Cloud Hunters". Find about more about this competition and the winners in the blog post below.

Blog

 

The “2022 STE(A)M IT Competitions” called for primary and secondary teachers to share their integrated STEM teaching practices and to show how STEM Career topics are addressed in class. The competitions offered three streams, where teachers submitted their Learning Scenarios or Stories of Implementation.

 

WINNERS

Competition for Primary schools:

  • Right colours….? Our colours!
    Elisa Ripamonti, Samantha Maranesi, and Ilaria Rubertà (Italy)
  • Climate sentinels
    Maria Rosaria Gentile, Filomena Liberti, Maria Concetta Di Ciaccio and Lidia Maria Mele (Italy) with the support of Rossella De Angelis, Francesca Lucreziano, Leopoldo Turco, Dr Oreste Luongo, and Dr. Christian Lavarian
  • Can you see? Saving our world, it’s up to you and me!
    Roberta Colombo (Italy), Margarita Dakoronia (Greece), Despina Armenaki (Greece), Anatoli Vrocharidou (Greece), Athanasia Glezaki (Greece), Chrysoula Georgakopoulou (Greece), Inmaculada Mollá Todol (Spain), and Maria Pau Vilaplana (Spain)

Competition for Secondary schools:

  • Plant colors of science and art
    Vesna Ančić (Croatia)
  • Playing with meteorological data -what could we find out?
    Nikolina Bubica, Barbara Mandušić and Milana Gujinović (Croatia)
  • Ultrasonic Volume Measurement with Arduino Physical Programming
    Mesut Ulu (Turkey)

More details

 

The "STEM Alliance & STE(A)M IT - STEM Professionals Go Back to School Competition" is a STEM Alliance scheme that encouraged teachers and volunteers from STEM industries to organise career talks and collaborative activities in schools or online. Within the framework of the 2022 STEM Discovery Campaign and in collaboration with the STE(A)M IT project, this competition encouraged the integration of STEM Career topics in class through Career Sheets and (virtual) visits from STEM professionals to classrooms, among other options.

 

WINNERS

  • Meet a Phylogenetic Plant Ecologist Researcher
    Álvaro Molina Ayuso (Spain)
  • Build your Future – Financial Education
    Sabrina Nappi (Italy)
  • Heroes Hidden in Electricity
    Selda Topal (Turkey)
  • No Dream is too far: The Rakia Mission as a bridge to SPACE & STEM
    Stella Magid-Podolsky (Israel)
  • To Smoke or Not To smoke? It’s not questionable!
    Mario de Mauro (Italy)

More details

 

The competition called for teachers and educators that teach learners in primary and secondary schools in Europe to integrate Minecraft: Education Edition in their teaching. Integrating Minecraft: Education Edition in teaching encourage learners to engage in creative thinking, problem solving and a better understanding of democracy, citizenship and peace.

The teachers and educators had to submit a 90-second video with the tour through the "Minecraft: Education Edition" vision that their learners created.

 

WINNERS

The winners of the 13 years old and younger category are:

  • 1. Lia Turkadze, Georgia, "Knowledge" world; Virginie Tijtgat, Belgium, "Connectedness" world.
  • 2. Sanja Bozinovic, Croatia, "Peaceburg" world; Jostein Kenneth Ryan, Norway, "Building for peace" world.
  • 3. Vladyslav Hrebelnyk, Ukraine, "House of Peace" world; Simonetta Anelli, Italy, "The path of Peace" world.

The winners of the 14 years old and older category are:

  • 1. Selçuk Yusuf Arslan, Turkey, "Muhammed Yunus and Social Entrepreneurship" world; Susana Pérez, Spain, "Our peace project" world.
  • 2. Valeria Iordache, Romania, "Peace brings harmony" world; Marianna Prezzia, Italy, "Green way city" world.
  • 3. Stefan Pilser, Italy, "The Bridge to end Wars" world.

Congratulations to all the winners!

More details

 

The competition called for teachers to create Lesson Plans that integrated IBM SkillsBuild modules in class and connected them to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. The main goal was to familiarise students with the connection between their school subjects and prospective STEM careers and competencies required for pursuing them.

 

WINNERS

The three winners of the competition are:

  • Stavroula Skiada, Greece, "Tech4Good : Give a voice to the disabled"
  • Emma Abbate, Italy, "Hope is the thing with feathers" - Poetry through the lens of computational thinking
  • Selçuk Yusuf, Turkey, "Data Visualization for Sustainable Development Goals"

Congratulations to all the winners!

Check here the Lesson Plans they created!

 

Within the framework of the STEM Discovery Campaign 2022, the Life Terra project launched “Terra Mission Challenge” to popularise its learning materials, promote sharing best practices, and motivate actions to support sustainability among primary and secondary school teachers and their students

WINNERS

The winning teachers’ submissions of Learning Scenarios (primary school education) are:

  • Planting in the schoolyard
    Petronella Gkirtzimani (Greece)
  • All plastic is not fantastic
    Mara Kolar (Croatia)
  • Food defenders
    Maria Tsapara and Angeliki Liapi (Greece)

The winning teachers’ submissions of Learning Scenarios (secondary school education) are:

  • Don’t cut the branch you’re sitting on
    Vesna Ančić (Croatia)
  • A great energy comes with... a great sustainability!
    Sandra Vicente Casas (Spain)
  • Food is life: Sustainable food is our future
    Graça Delicado (Portugal)

The winning teachers’ submissions of Stories of Implementation are:

  • Let’s step closer to less waste habitats
    Silvana Jakimovska Binova (North Macedonia)
  • The microplastic detectives
    Stavroula Skiada (Greece)
  • Can you see? Saving our world, it’s up to you and me!
    Roberta Colombo (Italy)

Congratulations to all the winners!

More details

 

The "Leonardo4Children 2022 Awards" encouraged students to use their artistic and scientific skills to create work that addressed one or more of the following issues: climate action/environmental sustainability, social/gender equality, or peace between people. The winners will be announced in due course.

More details

 

The "Europeana Education Competition 2022" is an educational competition, which is organized in a two-tiered manner. The first tier involves all members of the Europeana Education User Group of 2020-2021 (as part of the Europeana DSI-4 project). The second tier of the competition is open to all primary and secondary school teachers, museum educators or any other CHI professional – e.g. librarians, archivists, curators, etc. – from European Union countries and Horizon 2020 associated countries, who implemented a learning scenario from the Teaching with Europeana blog in their educational activities, either online or face-to-face. Click below to see the winners!

Winners

 

How to teach animal welfare and animal testing in your STEM classes? This was the question behind “The Three Rs Competition 2022”, of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, which encouraged participants to implement or develop teaching materials on the alternatives to animal testing in science, as well as to submit creative and innovative methodological ideas on how to integrate the Three Rs principles (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement of animal use in science) in STEM education.

 

WINNERS

The three winners of the competition are:
  • Ella Rakovac Bekeš (Croatia)
  • Emma Abbate (Italy)
  • Emine Kutlu (Turkey)
Congratulations to all the winners!

More details

 

ALL SUBMITTED ACTIVITIES

About the 2022 STEM Discovery Campaign and the competitions

We are pleased to announce that the final numbers for the 2022 STEM Discovery Campaign are:

  • 191,600 educators, parents, industry representatives, policymakers and pupils involved
  • among them 24,400 teachers
  • 8,900 schools engaged in the campaign
  • 1,696 organised activities
  • 45 countries all over the globe

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the massive success of this campaign and made it possible to reach more students than ever! You really did make STEM for all!

PARTNERS