WINNERS OF THE STEM ALLIANCE COMPETITION - STEM DISCOVERY WEEK 2019
This year, STEM Alliance invited teachers to join the STEM Alliance Competition within the STEM Discovery Week 2019. The main idea was to demonstrate that STEM teaching is essential for STEM innovation and for shaping the future STEM workforce. Moreover, the competition aimed at the promotion of education and careers in these fields as an opportunity for everyone, regardless gender or grades in school. Participants were able to submit either activities or resources that contextualise STEM teaching, career guidance and the attractiveness of STEM jobs. Out of many inspiring and truly motivating submissions, seven activities and three resources were particularly remarkable and won the jury's award. Find out more about the winners below:
EVENTS
Little STEAMer
Hasan Basri Özcan - Turkey
This was a workshop for the development of STEAM skills. We organized space themed events within the scope of STEM Discovery Week to awaken students' interest in science. First, students were expected to design materials as they could not observe the sky with the naked eye. Students prepared an animation to solve this problem by using the storytelling method and used Marbling Art to design their own sky. Then they designed their own Galileoscopes and prepared space costumes with recycling materials. They designed a space shuttle with Lego, Twin and Arduino to go into space. Teachers related to the discovery of the constellations made presentations.
VI Semana de la ciencia STEM Week
Lorenzo Castilla - Spain
For three days we organized workshops in which some students of the school showed scientific aspects to other students, so they can understand the relevance of science and learning school. In addition, three workshops were organised with experts. Besides, our students visited important companies in our city (Atlantic Copper) to get to know what their work is about. This is a good way to make students aware of STEM in real-life and connecting the worlds of work and school.
I Am a Mathematician
Iveta Manolova - Bulgaria
The workshop "I am a mathematician" was held at the National Vocational Secondary School of Computer Technologies and Systems in Pravets, Bulgaria. Maria Brauchle from the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences introduced the students to some leading aspects of applied mathematics and inspired them to study maths. Learning how to use the dynamic software GeoGebra sparked great interest among the participants. The students solved practical tasks from the Viva Mathematica Competition which is a part of Scientix's repository. At the end of the workshop, students created pulsating hearts.
Professions of the Future
Marina Stanojlović Mirčić - Serbia
Within the framework of professional orientation for 7th grade students, a presentation of the Aviation Academy of Belgrade was organized. The pilot, Zoran Starčević, introduced the pupils to the conditions of schooling, educational profiles and employment opportunities. After reviewing the slides and short discussions, the students began to make a mind-map at Coggle. We also organized workshops for designing and creating robot models, aircrafts, satellites, space stations etc. After the workshop we organized an exhibition of the items we had created. Thus, all of our school's students had the opportunity to visit an exhibition in the school library about works from recycled material on the topic of the jobs from the future.
All-Ukrainian STEM-Education Festival Lviv
Marharyta Kaliuzhna - Ukraine
Participants attended lectures on relevant educational topics in STEM-oriented schools. The children were able to try themselves as STEM-researchers at workshops (to make work, to carry out chemical and physical experiments, to use innovative gadgets) and joined the competition of technical decisions. Participants also visited the exhibition of projects and took part in the drawing of gifts.
Lego We Do 2 with Ozobots
Eva Raffajová - Slovakia
This event dealt with the development of programming within lessons and not just informatics. The result of the project is, among other things, the creation of a padlet - a website with options for teachers, pupils, their parents and the general public. Likewise, pupils have learned to use different programming steps, languages, programs as well as software that serve not only to learn how to encode but also to develop technological skills. Finally, a class project was organized to collaborate in programming, code robots in a "computer ring" and present robots to the class.
"Non-formal education of the learners through STEM projects"
Olga Juravschi - Moldova
The event we organized was the first step to introducing STEM to our school. We invited the main education stakeholders from Anenii Noi district, representatives from Technical University of Moldova as well as the science teachers and students from other schools in our area. The conference included several speeches and 11th grade students introducing potential future careers addressing 21st century skills and possible jobs that don't exist yet. The students also presented their STEM projects that they created for this conference. Finally, experts from the Technical University of Moldova expressed their appreciation to the students for their projects. After that they told them about the STEM careers they can choose after graduate the University.
RESOURCES
Requalification of dairy by-products
Honorata Pereira - Portugal
As a by-product of cheese production, whey is often discarded as effluent in water courses. In this resource, students engage in a bibliographical research and an analysis of social media. They study the fermentation processes of glucose and galactose and obtain alcohol from the sugars of the whey. From the waste resulting from the production of alcohol, students are asked to evaluate the possibility of obtaining fermented butter from whey fats. From the salt obtained by distillation, they evaluate the possibility of producing a cheese-flavoured salt.
What does a forensic anthropologist do?
Daniela Bunea - Romania
This resource introduces the job of a forensic anthropologist and the work on analysing the human's DNA based on different types of materials, such as blood, bones, saliva or dirt. It raises awareness about the importance of STEM education and careers among fellow teachers and motivates students to choose a STEM career in the future, by using real-world examples as well as a TV show role model.
Profession: Software engineer
Gjorgjina Dimova - Republic of North Macedonia
This resource introduces students to the profession of a software engineer. It talks about the general job profile and what a typical working day looks like. The presentation also explains what one needs to study and what key skills are needed. Finally, it opens up possible places of employment, talks about challenges in the job and gives advice to teachers and parents.
STEM Discovery Week activities' map