SUNRAISE – Stem UNlimited Raise thanks to Arts at School in Europe

<< Background >>The project SUNRAISE – Stem UNlimited Raise thanks to Arts at School in Europe was coordinated by NAZARENO (IT) with 6 partners from CY, ES, GR, PL (out of them, 2 partners are secondary schools). The project aimed to tackle a set of serious problems affecting education in Europe, such as:> the general reduction in the quality of learning and school performance, with a risk of disengagement and dropout;> the low interest and performance shown by European students in STEM disciplines, despite the key importance of these subjects to develop the necessary innovation to face contemporary challenges;> the inequalities in access to education for students with disabilities or with special educational needs (SEN), generally reducing their quality of learning and school achievements.It is vitally important to support young people in learning to combine knowledge and interdisciplinary skills to solve problems, exercise critical and creative thinking, with the goal of raising a more prepared and resilient generation. To do so, it is crucial to introduce new educational systems in the study of STEM, and a change of aptitudes is needed in teachers' approaches, with a greater openness to innovative methods.<< Objectives >>SUNRISE started from the assumption that the arts are undoubtedly a highly valuable educational tool, and therefore it developed a set of innovative and alternative training tools for secondary school teachers and educators to teach STEM subjects combined with artistic techniques that can facilitate inclusion and participatory learning. This approach was revealed to be very effective for students with disabilities/SEN.The project objectives were:> to improve teaching’s quality through innovative and alternative didactics that enrich STEM teaching with different artistic expressions, facilitating inclusive and participatory learning;> to integrate formal education with non-formal education by professional artists and artists with disabilities; > to help teachers develop their skills regarding STEM and creativity, fostering creative thinking and sense of initiative, useful to find innovative solutions to individual and collective challenges;> to help students to handle the pandemic social and emotional repercussions through new opportunities of self-expression exploring contamination between STEM and arts;> to foster students’ awareness, relational and communication skills and their ability to think out of the box.<< Implementation >>The SUNRAISE project started formally in February 2022. Before the Kick Off Meeting, it was necessary to lay the foundations for the administrative and financial management of the project. The KOM was organized in May in Carpi (IT) by the Lead Partner, with the participation of all the partners. The work on the “PR1 - Analysis of the achievement of STEM skills in EU and the need for a more interactive approach” started initially as an analysis of the current situation in partner countries regarding STEM achievements by students and education methodologies in place, including best practices, and investigation of teachers’ and education professionals’ needs in terms of skills development and innovative teaching. The analysis consisted in a desk and field research (questionnaires and focus groups), the second one directly involving teachers & training professionals working in secondary schools in partner countries, for teaching STEM subjects. Overall, 5 National Reports (IT,ES,GR,CY,PL) were developed, collecting all the information and analyses coming from the questionnaires, focus groups and desk researches. Finally, a final EU report was published providing a summary of all the data and results from the 5 national reports. A final summary with specific suggestions, comments and feedback for PR3 was included.In November 2022 we started the preparation of “PR2 SUNRAISE E-learning platform” for training teachers. The platform is an interactive board where each partner created an open online course in relation to the module of its competence (developed in PR3), with descriptions, explanations, quizzes, videos and images useful for students and teachers to learn and practice a new concept of lesson. The platform was tested both by the project partners during the LTTA and by the final target (teachers and students) during the PR3 pilots.In parallel, from October 2022, we started working on “PR3 SUNRAISE innovative training programme for teaching STEM and scientific subjects through creative approaches”; the programme consists in 7 modules, each combining 1 STEM subject with specific art techniques and represents an innovative methodology to build curiosity and engagement, practical and creative thinking, with a special added value for students with learning difficulties or disabilities. The modules were piloted and tested with teachers and students on two separate occasions, in spring 2023 and in autumn 2023. As the platform became ready later than expected, as it required a lot of work from all the stakeholders, the partnership agreed to start firstly with the piloting of the modules (without the online environment) and then with the validation of the programme directly on the platform as soon as it became possible (school timing had to be considered). 3 partners piloted the training specifically with students with disabilities/SEN.For the joint work on PR3, the LTTA organized in Spain by ESCIENCIA in February 2023 played an essential role, as all the partners’ staff actively participated in testing and fine tuning the contents of the modules. In coincidence with the LTTA, the 2nd TPM was set up exploiting the presence of all the partners, in order to monitor the ongoing project activities.Finally, from June 2023 we started working on PR4 SUNRAISE ebook, which brought together all the research, pilots, learning and main findings of the project. In order to discuss and monitor all the ongoing activities, the 3rd TPM was organized in Poland in July 2023 and the final meeting in Greece in January 2024. In the last 3 months of the project, 7 national multiplier events were organized in IT, ES, GR, PL, CY to mainstream and promote the project results delivered during the SUNRAISE project and find other possible interested partners for the results’ sustainability and transferability, as well as possible opportunities for the further exploitation of results even after the project end. Local stakeholders and policy makers were invited to participate in order to have their feedback about the final results of the project.<< Results >>The project concrete outputs were the following:> PR1: European Report about the achievement of STEM skills in EU and the need for a more interactive approach https://sunraiseproject.eu/refund_returns/european-report/ ; 5 National Reports https://sunraiseproject.eu/refund_returns/european-report/ ; 170 questionnaires (36 Italy, 32 Greece, 31 Spain, 36 Poland, 35 Cyprus) and 49 people participating to focus groups (13 Italy, 14 Greece, 12 Poland, 2 Cyprus and 8 Spain).> PR2: E-Learning platform containing the PR3 SUNRAISE training programme https://sunraiseproject.eu/login/ > PR3: SUNRAISE innovative training programme for teaching STEM & scientific subjects through creative approaches, made of 7 modules. > PR4: SUNRAISE eBook https://sunraiseproject.eu/e-book/> LTTA organized in Spain.> Pilotings: 10 pilotings organized in Cyprus (2 teachers and 219 students involved); 10 pilotings organized in Greece (11 teachers and 179 students involved); 8 pilotings organized in Italy (16 teachers and 116 students involved); 20 pilotings organized in Poland (47 teachers and 256 students involved); 9 pilotings organized in Spain (21 teachers and 111 students involved);> 9 multiplier events organized at the national level to disseminate SUNRAISE project activities and results to the relevant stakeholders as to transfer and exploit project results. 3 ME in Italy and Poland and 1 in Greece, Cyprus, Spain for a total of more than 440 people attending.> Communication and Dissemination material (4 newsletters https://sunraiseproject.eu/refund_returns/newsletters/ , project flyer and banner), dissemination channels (Project website: https://sunraiseproject.eu/ ; Project Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084827811255 ; Project Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/sunraise_euproject/; Project LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sunraise-project/ ) , 2 Dissemination Reports.> 2 Evaluation reports.