3D STEAM and STEAM Experiments projects begin!
In March 2024, our Innovative Learning Environments team members Kristóf Fenyvesi, Takumi Yada, Orsolya Tuba, and Matias Mäki-Kuutti visited the beautiful Czech Republic for two beginning educational STEAM projects: the 3Dsteam project, and the STEXperiments project.
3D STEAM MEETING IN OSTRAVA
On 18th March, the ILE research team met with partners from Ostravská Univerzita https://www.osu.cz/ and Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU) https://www.jku.at/en at the recently built new city campus of Ostravské Univerzity, for the first in-person meeting of the 3D-STEAM project. The project, ”Accelerating Steam-related Knowledge and Skills via 3D Modelling and 3d Printing” (3D-STEAM) aims to design, develop and implement teaching methodologies, build labs with technology within the realm of 3d printing and 3d modelling, and acquire knowledge and skills with a STEAM approach. The project employs creativity in students by inviting students to set up their own design of 3D objects, to form their 3d models and to produce them using 3d printers. The main target group of the project is pre- and inservice teachers.
This project provides knowledge about the availability of resources in schools and universities, the pros and cons of 3D printing, difficulties of assessment, costs, space requirements, among many other things. We will also provide a summary of steam education 3d printing, a clear vision of what can be used for lessons, topics or skills identified in curriculums for development of learning materials, along with didactical points for teaching.
In the evening, we were led on a tour of a huge old mining facility museum in Landek Park, Dolni Vitkovice https://www.dolnivitkovice.cz/en/landek-park/ , checked the city of Ostrava from high above through the viewing platform of the new city hall tower https://www.visitostrava.eu/en/discover-ostrava/top-10/8052-viewing-tower-of-the-new-town-hall.html
STEXPERIMENTS MEETING IN PRAGUE
Next, our team moved to Prague, and on 20th to 21st March, we met at the Charles University Faculty of Education https://pedf.cuni.cz/PEDFEN-3.html for the introduction for the STEXperiments Erasmus+ project. The project’s main goal is to develop a set of learning activities built around real and virtual STEM experiments and thus help teachers to include meaningful STEM in their teaching.
Using national curricula as reference points, the project will build pedagogical pillars for experience-oriented and experiments-based STEAM education, and the creation of STEAM activities that focus on active learning, creative thinking, real-world applications, fostering digital readiness and resilience. The project will also provide steam experiment testing as well as peer- and self-assessment tools for pre-service teachers.
And of course, after the meetings we had a chance to see the beautiful city of Prague.
Thank you for hosting us at the Charles University!
This project is funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The project partners are: Charles University (CU), Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU), University of Jyväskylä, Bahçeşehir University (JYU)
