STEAMing Ahead partners travel to Portugal for the fourth meeting of the project

Make It Pedagogical’s headquarters in Maia, Portugal, hosted the fourth project meeting last week, where partners discussed the implementation of the tasks in the final phase of the project, which will end in February 2024.

One of the main issues discussed was the development of the piloting phase of the lessons plan developed by the partners an based on the topics of saving water and war, which is currently being tested in the three schools participating in the project: Colégio Santa Eulália (Portugal), Sincan Şehit Abdullah Büyüksoy Bilim ve Sanat Merkezi (Türkiye) and Istituto Comprensivo Salvemini (Italy). 

In our world, where change and development are inevitable, raising individuals who can ‘ride this wave’ and help to sustain its momentum, is a primary goal for society. This becomes realised by raising students to be the founders of tomorrow’s development, to act as individuals who question, research, design, solve problems and show their creativity. 

Using the STEAM approach, the STEAMing Ahead partnership has developed a lesson plan based on two highly relevant, current topics: 

Topic 1: Saving water

When you are looking, you may think that water will never run out and that there is plenty to share. To some extent, this information is correct as the total amount of water in the earth’s atmosphere and on its surface is constant. The water cycle provides this stability. 

However, are all water resources suitable for the use of all organic living matter? What kind of sociological changes can occur in a world where water resources are insufficient? How does climate change affect the availability of water resources?

Topic 2: War 

Throughout history, the biggest problem for humanity is war. Regardless of the reasons, wars in which innocent living things are harmed and all the resources useful for humanity are seriously damaged unfortunately continue to be our most challenging problem. 

So, while wars threaten human life, what additional damage do they create? How do they affect society sociologically? Are the economic effects limited to the conflict zone, or can they extend far from the conflict? What can be done to raise awareness about this? 

In order to make it easier for teachers to find answers to all these questions, STEAMing Ahead has designed lesson plans for the solution of real-life problems in which different disciplines crossover in cooperation.