Invatare Autentica si Dezvoltare Durabila prin Activitati STEAM

We applied for this project because we understood how intermingled school subjects are getting nowadays given the infinite sources of information and the more various resources used in the process of teaching and learning. For us, interdisciplinarity makes learning more meaningful and more effective. And the STEAM approach seemed the most appropriate means to address our needs of developing key competences, of tackling learning disadvantage and early school leaving through inclusion and of developing an eco-friendly behaviour among pupils, teachers and parents alike. The reason we have also applied is because we wanted to share our ideas, LEGO and scientific-based experiments at a larger scale with other nations who have their own schemes and vision and so, together, make school education more appealing for our pupils and teachers. And, given the intrinsic aim of all the planned activities to promote more care for nature and immediate action from every single individual, this project seemed the perfect idea to make everything happen the way we wanted. Because, when people find a common goal, they will always make greater things together. And that is why we called it STEAM Team for Nature!

Apart from the three main large objectives we clearly formulated in the description of our project (O1 - Developing key competences through STEAM activities for 100 students and 15 teachers by the end of the 24 months, O2 - Tackling learning disadvantage and early school leaving through inclusion for 30 students by the end of the project and O3 - Developing an eco-friendly behavior of 100 students and 30 teachers by the end of the project.), there were so many other things we wanted to achieve by implementing this project, such as: -giving our best students, who most often belong to quite disadvantaged families, the opportunity to thrive and show their talent at work in an international context which helped them understand the world better; -giving the teachers the chance to improve their methods and approaches which definitely needed an upgrade so as to integrate the most recent technologies which attract pupils so much and make our lives so much easier; -promoting school as one of the most important places where education is provided effectively and meaningfully to our pupils who will be our support later on in our lives. Nowhere can a teacher prove their irreplaceable role than in a modern fully equipped school.

The activities we implemented in our project focused mostly on: -LEGO-prototype robots build and programmed to perform various tasks and then improved to support human activity and their endeavour to protect the natural environment. -Physics and Mathematical practical experiments that taught pupils and teachers alike how renewable sources of energy protect nature from pollution and other potential dangers inflicted upon humans and animals by the conventional energy obtained at present from fossil fuels. -natural disasters and ways to prevent them. What human activities harm nature and what people need to do to fix their damage or decrease their negative impact. The scarcity of certain essential resources. -smart cities and ways to manage and run them, the problems we need to address when it comes to providing people with the necessary energy, food, water, medical, transport services in rural and mostly urban areas; -recycling, reusing, repurposing the materials we already have at our disposal and the concept of circular economy; -volunteering acts to plant and clean natural areas; -study visits to science and olive oil museums to learn again from experiments and professional people in their domains how technology has evolved.

The concrete outputs of our project are useful didactic resources devised by the participating teachers which can be further used by other colleagues to teach their pupils means of empowering people to save our planet by opting for renewable energy and good practices in terms of environmentally friendly behavior. We pride ourselves on having planted 13 olive trees in the Turkish school garden and other 25 maple and acacia trees in Olt County Romania but also on having provided the Romanian School with 5 more LEGO kits which made the robotic club more appealing and more practical for our pupils. We made our project really visible within our communities through frequent disseminating events in front of relevant numerous audiences who are very likely to further pass on the information and to apply for such projects. Banners and Erasmus+ corners are part of our results as well beyond the incommensurable experience which is perhaps the most impacting one for the students who had the chance to travel and live for one week within a foreign new family where they learnt from the very source different language and cultural features. There were both teachers and pupils who travelled abroad for the first time in their lives with Erasmus+.