Winning projects

European STEM Teacher Awards have been awarded to

SCIENCE FOR THE YOUNGEST

Juan Antonio Prieto Sanchez and Maria Pilar Orozco Saenz, Spain

for the project Astrobiology: a new tool to engage primary school students into science: Astrobiology is a new science that tries to unveil the existence of life as we know it, beyond our planet. To do so, astrobiologists must combine different traditional sciences such as physics or biology to define first of all the concept of “living organism”, subsequently define the conditions for life to exist and finally develop the technology to be able to study it. Astrobiology is in fact the guiding line that has allowed us to carry out several research projects in which primary school students follow the official science curriculum through multidisciplinary work whilst discovering the latest achievements in space exploration.

Patron of the theme was Albi.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN EDUCATION

Emma Crisell, United Kingdom

for the project Food for the 21st century - making a difference: Working collaboratively with sixth formers, STEM professionals and members of the local community, my school’s project has focussed on three sustainable development goals -2 zero hunger, 3 good health and well-being and 13 climate action. We have investigated if it is possible to grow food at our school all year round, reducing food miles, promoting healthy food choices and prompting scientific lines of enquiry. This project is relevant to students every-day life. Through innovative approaches it has encouraged a love of gardening, improved working scientifically skills and has had a positive impact with all children, particularly those with additional needs.

Patron of the theme was GasNet.

TECHNOLOGIES IN STEM EDUCATION

Georgios Chatzisavvas and Kalliopi Giannakoudaki, Greece

for the project "Defying" Gravity!: The present work intends to introduce students to the phenomenon of stroboscopy through a STEM teaching approach. Students study the free fall of a water droplet by using the storboscopic principles. By changing the frequency of the flashes of LEDs, they observe that water droplets "defy" the law of gravity. Thus, depending on the frequency of flashes, the drops might appear stationary or even move upwards. In addition to the low-cost construction and observation of this very impressive phenomena, students also take measurements and by using the free fall equations adapted to the problem data, they finally calculate the acceleration of gravity with very good accuracy.

Patron of the theme was CZC.cz.

DIVERSITY IN STEM EDUCATION

Gabriela Pluciak, Poland

for the project Dizziness from the windmill: The aim of this project is to show the mutual exchange of different types of mechanical energy while driving windmills, i.e. buildings with wings. While realizing the project we were looking for an answer to the question: How can a windmill rotor be set in motion? Participants constructed models of various types of windmills, which were driven by such forces as air, water, elasticity or gravity.

Patron of the theme was Eduzměna.

STEM WITH ARTS

Jan Günther, Maria Hellmann and Julia Trummheller, Germany

for the project Create and code your own artful cardboard robot (artful cardboard-bot): First, the students create their own two-wheel robots made of cardboard. Next, they decorate them with many different materials, using a hot glue gun. This leads to a great variety of individual, artful cardboard bots. As the materials are very cheap and easily available, students may carry out further projects at home. Second, the students are introduced to coding in general and the coding of a single-board computer (Calliope mini) to make their robots move. The programming language is NEPO, which is similar to Scratch, a block-based programming language. Since the project focuses on creativity, skilled manual work (soldering), and programming, it attracts both girls and boys.

Patron of the theme was GZ Media.

COLLABORATION IN STEM EDUCATION

Miroslav Panoš and Kateřina Vágnerová, Czech Republic

for the project How long does it take to "cook yourself" in a closed car: This project is based on a real situation, follows up on frequent media reports. The basic objective is to measure the rate of temperature rise inside a car. The project brings surprising results to children, and it is very attractive concerning the tools used and the topic of the problem. The whole project is easily gradable. It is easy to adjust the difficulty and breadth of the assignment as well as the options and techniques according to the age and abilities of the children. There is a link between the physical problem and critical thinking concerning the content of the media message and the use of knowledge of biology.

Patron of the theme was Roche.

JOINT PROJECTS

Francesca Butturini and Javier Julián Fernández, Italy and Spain

for the project Limonene / Limoneno: Remote Joint project on the molecular structure and characteristics of R and S limonene; plant metabolic pathways for the production of limonene; genes involved in limonene production; recognition of limonene with the human sense of smell and the genes involved; bactericidal and fungicidal function of limonene; extraction of limonene from citrus peel and characterization; uses of limonene; lemon taste teste for olfactory studies about Verona and Valencia indigenous people: these data will be processed and crossed with the bio-informatic data on the receptor protein of human olfactory cells to verify the statistical distribution.

Patron of the theme was Czech National Agency for International Education and Research.

HIGHLY COMMENDED PROJECTS

ENERGY + STRENGTH = BIRDIE, Canada

Nature Answers, Portugal

Tree Trails, Italy

Centrifugal Force Awakens / spinning pendulum, Cyprus

Eggs, Czech Republic

Manufacture of drawing charcoal, Finland

Space exploration from small scale to large scale, Spain and Canada

 

CZECH SOCIETY OF PHYSICS AWARD

has been awarded to Ian Robinson, United Kingdom

for the project Geophysics on a Budget - opensource research level earth science projects for school and home: Presented here two novel research grade school geophysics projects. Both are low cost and sufficiently modular to allow students plenty of scope to amend, adapt and improve. One is a nano-Tesla magnetometer capable of observing changes in the solar wind 24/7 and sufficiently sensitive to alert to the likely onset of aurora. With Sol moving towards a peak in its solar cycle this is a timely project for pre-university students. Secondly an Infrasound monitor, again designed to run remotely 24/7 automatically uploading data plots to the user’s website. Infrasound is a little studied area of geophysics and original research may very well be possible here.

PRAGUE CITY HALL AWARD

has been awarded to Lucia Dovalová, Slovakia

for the project Crystallization and the touch of light, connecting science with art and making a science toy:

Crystallization as a method, which is used for separating the components of a uniform mixture, is normally taught in Chemistry lessons. In our project, we managed to connect science with art through experimentation with crystallization. Thanks to the touch of light, we could see how ordinary transparent crystals turned into brightly colored gems. We have photographed the crystals in polarized light. In Art lessons, the pupils´ task was to use paints and play around with the structure. We have used real crystals to create a collection of jewelry. The connection of the crystals and the polarizing light in the caleidoscope brings a beautiful physical-chemical dimension.

and Zdeněk Polák, Czech Republic

for the project Simple experiments supporting the illustrativeness of physics teaching Focused on magnetism and related phenomena: Simple experiments from which students gain personal experience with a physical phenomenon. Focused on magnetism and related phenomena. Hands-on experiments.