The Project

BRINGING TEENAGERS CLOSER TO SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

The millennium is the era of technological breakthroughs, of everything digital, and the job market goes in the same direction: the highest expected salaries are in fact those of future graduates in science and technology, and the current job market demands for more digital professionals than higher education can supply.

STUDENT POPULATION MADE OF science, technology, engineering and mathematics students (STEM)1

In Asia, 20 % of the whole student population study science or technology subject.
In Europe, only 2 % of students are involved in these fields.

1White paper about STEM studies and careers (2011):
Download (01.09.2014)

Boys & girls want to work with
science and technology or
become scientists2

In developing countries, between 60 % 90% of students want to become scientists or work with science & technology. In developed countries, only 30 % of boys and 20% of girls have this wish.

2Svein Sjøberg and Camilla Schreiner (2010): The ROSE project.
An overview and key findings. University of Oslo, March 2010

OUR PILLARS

WHY AND HOW DO WE NEED TO EDUCATE OURSELVES IN STEM DISCIPLINES?

There is a growing skill gap between what is provided by higher education and what is needed in the job market, and, as a result, it is not clear which education profile provides better understanding of the future and gives better preparation for life in general: what gives us transversal skills, what are the new, emerging professions related to science and technology besides the already established ones, and how cross fertilization with education in humanities can lead to blooming professions.

In other words: Do we want more scientists? Or do we want different kinds of scientists & engineers who work closer to society?

This is our food for thought, and it leads us around two focuses:

Identify the STEM skills that are most required for future jobs and improve them through our educational offer

Accustom society, and in particular young students, to recognize and appreciate STEM concepts that happen in our everyday life without us noticing.

Across them all, students, teachers, families and people from different sides of the world will work side by side in crafting new things from scratch in the streets, museums and all the more locations, using scientific concepts acquired with our citizen science module.

WHERE
Our group of partners includes expert in STEM higher education. We are a team of scientists, teachers, researchers, educators, marketing analysts., and we all have previously worked with local schools in formal and informal education activities. Together with them, we will hold the 6 courses in each country of our group.

HOW IT WILL WORK
For each discipline, we will present 7 to 9 core topics by explaining their practical applications and their impact on our everyday life and work. This will happen by mixing basic notions with hands-on experiments, games and self-reasoning sessions. Also, for each discipline, we will show which specific skill and competences you can learn with that subject and use in your future profession.

WHAT WE WILL CREATE
A multidisciplinary guide for teachers on how to best exploit STEM education, including a more formal section on extra-curricular activities at school and an informal one on how to work with science festivals, university organized lectures and web open accessible self-study materials

Formal and informal educational contents and methodologies to teach and learn science in an attractive way (learning by experiment, gaming, citizen science activities at schools)

Recommendations for the uptake of the best STEM learning practices by local, national and Europe-wide education systems

OUR GOALS

More young students become interested in STEM subjects and pursue STEM related careers

They make an informed decision and run a lower risk of having to change the subject or their study

More ICT specialists and PhD students, currently lacking in many EU countries

New highly qualified experts in research and innovation take up industry-based jobs

More women study STEM disciplines