DAY 2

On Tuesday, the 13 project teams worked full speed on their assignment: Make the European School more green. There was very positive energy in the ICT rooms and we saw some very innovative ideas, solutions and advanced projects.

As teams made some very good progress, it also became much more clear what were the expectations. Also, the coding part of the project became less of a challenge as teams had a chance to test, try and re-try while teachers played fully their facilitator role.

They all identified the environmental challenge they wanted to solve, from food waste, to school bus pollution, to sorting waste, energy consumption… Two external speakers from the LEGO Group and a Chef who is also developing a litter app inspired children for their research. A key highlight of the day was the chocolate mousse which the Chef cooked for children.

Teams learnt to collaborate, communicate and develop their creative thinking skills. They split the tasks and worked on the presentation, did some robot prototyping and some construction mixing materials. Some teams took the opportunity to interview school personnel to gather insights.

During the feedback session, they shared they had a very good day. They really enjoyed working with students from other sections. The hands-on/minds-on approach for the project and the fact that there is no right/no wrong is extremely appealing to students.

Friday morning (9.30-12.00), parents, teachers and pupils are invited to salle polyvalent where the teams will exhibit their solutions to one environmental challenge.

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This week, the European School, some parents and LEGO Education are piloting a co-created project. 51 pupils (S3) are tasked with the challenge to make their school greener using coding and robotics solutions.

The project consists of two main workstreams:

1. Pupils have researched with their teachers some issues around climate change and the protection of the environment. We are asking teams to present to a jury a solution to one environmental challenge which the school is facing, e.g. energy consumption, waste, air pollution, transportation to school…
2. Teams will build and code a robotic solution to the environmental problem each team has chosen to address.

The robotic solution will also be presented to a jury. All the teams will exhibit their research and robot solution to parents on Friday 22 February.

The purpose of the project week is to explore hands-on curriculum-based teaching solutions and playful learning experiences that develop students’ Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and 21st Century skills.

Such skills are important to ensure students’ employability in the future, e.g. critical thinking and creativity.  Today, most jobs require at least some level of digital skills. Yet, there is a digital skills shortage as the vast majority of Europeans do not properly master new technologies. Meanwhile, the younger generations might be digitally confident, but not always digitally competent.

So today, the teams got to know each other and primarily focused the effort brainstorming which environmental issue they wanted to address. Different teams had different approaches, e.g. work collectively, split the team, explore the robot functions first.

A guest speaker from the European Commission’s in-house think tank made a presentation on climate change to inspire the pupils.

We are off for a good start and look forward to seeing many of you on Friday 9.30-12.00 to visit the booth of the students, show support and hear from them what they learnt through the week.