Enhancing STEM Education through digital innovation with micro:bit

Partners

• Lead Coordinator: Ivan Cankar Primary School, Zagreb, HR
• Partners:
  • Agrupamento de Escolas Fernando Casimiro Pereira da Silva, PT
  • 105 DIMOTIKO SCHOLIO THESSALONIKIS, EL
  • Osnovna škola Horvati, HR
  • Institut za razvoj i inovativnost mladih, HR

With this project, we aim to:

• Develop a new curriculum and provide teacher training to enhance digital competencies.
• Create inclusive educational content that supports experiential learning through the design of Escape Rooms.
• Pilot these innovations in our partner schools and refine them based on feedback and evaluations.

Target groups of this project are:

• IT Teachers: Equipped with modern resources to teach programming.
• Students (Aged 7-15): Engaging with curriculum that encourages problem-solving through digital tools and gamified learning.
• Schools: Modernizing educational approaches to meet contemporary needs and sustainability goals.

Key Activities

1. Kick-Off Meeting: Hosted in Croatia to align all partners on the project’s goals and timelines.
2. Curriculum Development: Creating a robust curriculum that integrates digital literacy seamlessly.
3. Transnational Meetings: Scheduled in Greece and Portugal to facilitate collaboration and oversee project progress.
4. Online Platform and Escape Room Development: Crafting engaging educational tools and digital environments for interactive learning.
5. Teacher Training: Specialized programs to empower teachers with the latest in IT education and pedagogy.
6. Piloting and Evaluation: Implementing the curriculum in schools followed by thorough evaluation and adjustment.
7. Dissemination: Sharing our findings and developed resources with a broader audience to replicate success in other educational settings.

Educational materials

Explore how “Micro:bit i Escape room” is setting new standards in educational practices and fostering an inclusive, digital-savvy generation. Additional info and materials can be found on our Izradi! portal here.

Project partners

Lead partner

Elementary school Ivan Cankar is a lead partner and primary school located in Zagreb, which teaches 7-14 yo pupils. Its main teaching activities cover a wide range of fields, such as: IT, science, art, ecology, sports, environment & humanitarian work. The school also participates in several national & international initiatives, including the UNICEF programme ‘Stop violence among children’, where it was awarded the Violence-Free School certificate.

Project partners

Elementary school Horvati is one of the oldest schools in Zagreb and has over three hundred students, age 6-15, providing safe (UNICEF program – school without violence) and challenging environment for their students. Besides regular classes, students can choose different elective subjects and extracurricular activities. Primary School Horvati was awarded by City of Zagreb for contribution to development of educational process. Also, the school is well known and takes great pride for its successful inclusion of students with special needs, who participate in all the lessons according to the adjusted curriculum. Teachers, medical staff and personal assistants regularly help them. Horvati’s students actively take part in various projects and interest groups such as EU projects participation and video conferences.

Agrupamento de Escolas Fernando Casimiro Pereira da Silva has extensive experience with the development of pedagogical practices. In the last 10 years we have endeavoured to innovate in different areas from the use of educational technologies, to changes to the core pedagogical practices, that have improved the way the community perceives our schools from a local and national view. The school Quality Observatory queried different people from the education community (students, parents, teachers and non-teaching staff) and concluded that the main issues that prevented better results were the lack of motivation of students, the methodologies used, and the organisation of the learning process. Our staff is about 120 teachers and 50 non teaching assistants. It´s a public cluster of schools with about 1050 students from kindergarden to 9th grade.

105 DIMOTIKO SCHOLIO THESSALONIKIS is one of the biggest primary schools in the city of Thessaloniki. It was built in 1986. Our school has the experience of interdisciplinarity. Mathematics, science, history, geography, and music are programmed into computers. All teachers of the above specializations want to participate in programs that enhance the role of the school in the daily lives of children. Robotics in essence is the simulation of everyday life in all dimensions. All teachers can work together to give another character to the school they live every day.

The Institute for Youth Development and Innovativity (IRIM) is a non-profit organisation based in Croatia that has developed and implements the largest extracurricular STEM educational program in Europe through the Croatian Makers movement, reaching more than 300,000 children in Croatia alone.

IRIM’s mission is to encourage and empower all children in Croatia and the region to acquire the competencies in the field of STEM necessary to become equal citizens of the 21st century, not only by providing them with access to technology, but also by developing and implementing education for teachers and mentors and year-round organized activities for students.

IRIM’s focus is the development of digital and scientific literacy, technological and other competencies within the STEM field so that its users become equal citizens of the 21st century. However, we see STEM activities as a tool for achieving even more important competencies: key skills such as learning skills, problem solving etc.

This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.