Kromeriz, here we come!

by Valentina Ercolani from H-FARM Education

H-FARM
H-FARM
Nov 4 · 3 min read
Sparx team

In October 2019 our Sparx team — the one that plans and organizes our amazing digital activities for children and young people– went to Czech Republic (in a van!) for the ARTIFEX Conference dedicated to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education and innovative out-of-the-classroom learning environments.

What ARTIFEX is

According to the European Union, STEM skills are essential for the 21st century.

ARTIFEX is an ERASMUS+ project that involves teachers and educators in actively experimenting with STEM subjects in innovative learning environments outside the classroom, such as Fablabs or Makerspaces.

It aims to strengthen the skills of educators to ensure that learning takes place effectively within these environments. One of the outputs of the project is the creation of an e-learning platform that will be used to identify personal educational competences in STEM and offer access to a series of downloadable workshops for students.

Our role in ARTIFEX

As Sparx team, in 2019 we contributed by designing two workshops. We tested them, and 3 more designed by other partners, at the Castelfranco FabLab, together with a research group formed of 11 primary and secondary school teachers.
These meetings allowed us to collect interviews on the different experiences that took place in the classroom and data about the activities, through the action research methodology.

At the conference

We were 70 participants from Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Denmark and the Czech Republic: an important occasion to exchange perspectives after one year of ARTIFEX. We shared experiences and new ideas in a friendly and collaborative atmosphere.
During the first day, we presented the outputs of the first year and discussed how to make STEM more accessible to teachers and educators. The day ended with a visit to Pevnost poznání, the Interactive Science Centre of the Palacký University in Olomouc.
On the second day we were hosted by the Kromeriz City Council. We spent the morning collecting feedbacks in various focus groups, guided by a series of questions on the most important themes of the ARTIFEX project.

Pevnost poznání

This wonderful adventure ended with a visit to the Kromeriz Gardens, a UNESCO world heritage site.

H-FARM

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H-FARM

We are the leading platform where innovation, entrepreneurship and education coexist and create contamination. http://h-farm.com

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