Collaborating and consulting visit from STEM project partners
Primary School Ivana Gorana Kovačića Delnice is the leader of a STEM project in collaboration with the University of Stavanger from Norway. The project is funded by The Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds of the Republic of Croatia, and, jointly, by the three European donor countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Three primary schools from Croatia are participating in the project – Delnice, Vrgorac and Stari Jankovci. Being a part of this project offers our school the opportunity to significantly improve means and methods of teaching STEM subjects, as well as equipping it with modern gadgets which can be used in teaching Mathematics, Physics, ICT, Programming, Robotics, Biology, Chemistry, as well as in Nature and Society which is a school subject taught in grades 1 do 4.
The first collaborating and consulting visit took place at our school from March 27 till March 29.
The professors from the University of Stavanger, Inge Christ and Frode Skarstein, held a workshop for 5th grade students titled ”How Can Things Fly?”. The students had the opportunity to build rockets on their own, and test them afterwards. They enjoyed learning about physical and chemical laws in a more practical and understandable way.
The guest professors also held workshops for teachers and other educational staff on how to implement STEM and STEM equipment in different programmes and subjects. The participants were given the opportunity to explore the possibilities of the GOPro Quik camera during a workshop which focused on the ”Application of STEM in Image and Sound Recording”. They were also able to film physical and chemical experiments by using the GoPro Quik camera and their smartphones. Moreover, they conducted experiments out in the open during the ”How Can Things Fly?” workshop.
By a large, it was a very fruitful and friendly collaboration between our students, teachers and the Norwegian professors.
Božica Pleše, prof.