Programme: Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for school education
Action Type: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Project duration: 01-09-2015 - 30-11-2017
Project partners:
1. Budapest Metropolitan University
2. University of Jyväskylä (Finland)
3. STEM Team East (England)
4. University of Cantabria
Short summary: One of the targets of the Europe 2020 strategy is to strengthen the research and development performance of the European Union. Therefore STEM-related subjects gain importance when talking about the future priorities of education. Our project is addressed to support the Europe 2020 strategy on a smaller scale: by raising awareness towards STEM field amongst secondary school students. We believe that the best way to do that is to make these subjects attractive for some talented and creative young people, who will then influence their peers by sharing their good experiences and ideas, also, their enthusiasm. We believe, the key to understanding the next generations is to discover their point of view, to understand their expectations and to give them possibilities to form their own future through their own way. That is why we named our project “KIKS – Kids Inspire Kids for STEM”. In order to reach that strategic goal of ours, we will challenge kids on a national level first, in every country in the consortium. In the first phase of the project, they will have to form teams and execute awareness-raising activities in their own environment: amongst their friends, classmates, school, etc. The most successful student-team will be chosen from every county, who will participate in an international online challenge during the lifecycle of the project. We will organize this online challenge in 4 phases. In each phase, students will have to work in mixed multinational teams, and they will have to solve STEM-related tasks, by using cheap and recycled materials and online available, open source platforms and programs. They also will be asked to show their results to each other, to their classmates and to the wider public by using web2 platforms to disseminate the project. Therefore, it is not only the partners of the consortium but the students, as well, who will ensure the high visibility of the project. So not only their knowledge about STEM, but also their creativity, entrepreneurial skills, language, and social competencies will develop. Experts from consortial partners will continuously monitor the development of the students during
the project, and work together with their teachers. Through this way, our project will not only influence the students but their teachers as well, who will be able to refresh their teaching methods with the help of KIKS. Since participating institutions operate in different sectors of education, a cross-sectoral impact can be achieved by turning the results of the project into research papers, containing recommendations for other sectors, like higher education. The outcomes of the project will be available without any limitation on various platforms: social media (Facebook, YouTube), blog, OER platform, and on the webpage of the project.
For more info, please visit the project website: https://www.kiks.unican.es/en/que-es/
