SPACE (Strategic Partnership: Action of Change in Education) is an international network project, building bridges between the worlds of Arts education and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education through working with trainee teachers in the delivery of innovative & interdisciplinary education models.
The project is funded by the European program Erasmus +, and run by a strategic partnership of European organisations led by AP University College Antwerp (BE). Other partners include: Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT – IE), Curso de Musica Silva Monteiro (CMSM – PT), Speel je wijs – NL, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL – NO) and RESEO.
The project has run three intensive programmes for students from participating universities: one in Belgium in November 2016; one in Norway in February 2018; and one in Portugal in March 2019. As part of these programmes, the students were offered inspirational workshops from lecturers and practitioners modelling how to explore science subjects using arts methodologies. They then created their own workshops in groups and delivered them to local schools. They also worked together to archive their ideas on the SPACE digital moodle, and created ideas for the SPACE app.
The final intensive programme in March 2019 in Porto brought together students from Belgium, Norway and Ireland to test out the STEAM methodologies that had been developed in Portuguese schools. The students also prepared presentations for the SPACE conference, outlining the assets that had been created – a digital toolkit for the SPACE, a guidebook and mobile app for Write A Science Opera, and a pedagogical framework for the SPACE methodology.
The Porto Intensive programme culminated in a one day SPACE Conference for teachers and artists – Recipes for Creative Classrooms. 118 people attended the event and the SPACE team introduced the resources created by the project – the guidebook, the digital platform and the app.
The SPACE project wraps up in September 2019 and RESEO will be helping to house the resources and spread the word about what the project has achieved.
If you want to find out more, please find links to the project outcomes on the SPACE website.