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STEAM Heroes: The stake of an inclusive future! 

Have you ever thought about how many people manage to get into STEAM careers? You’d be surprised to know that about a third of people getting into mathematics careers are underachievers. And even then, these are mostly men and not women. 

STEAM Heroes is a project made for students in these situations, feeling underachieving in the STEAM and STEM careers.  

The objectives of the STEAM project. 

The goal of the project is to teach high school students the concepts of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) through different formats while being inclusive and accessible to all. The idea is to develop their skills and efficient use of resources. As such, let’s have a look at how our project will lead the future generation towards greater autonomy in STEAM. 

What we are looking for 

With the expansion of access to resources through the internet, many have access to different tools. On the other hand, there is a severe lack of interest from students in STEAM skills, mostly because of the lack of self-confidence in that domain due to its complexity. Another issue is the cost. STEAM materials can be quite expensive, too much for any student or school to easily get access to. STEAM courses can also lack gender balance. Most people getting into these sectors are men, even today. Women or people with SLD’s are far less involved, partly because of the guidelines not made for the latter of the two, and because of the lack of representation and of relatable role models.  

The project is also made to encourage students towards STEM Careers. STEM education can be expensive, complex, and non-inclusive, leading to a lack of interest in these fields. We want them to get the tools they need to be more engaged and ultimately more successful in STEM. We also want to address the gender gap still persisting in STEM fields today, making sure we have a balance of male and female role models in our resources. And it’s not just a matter of fair representation and de-invisibilisation of female scientists. Underrepresentation of women in STEAM fields, means that we, as a society, end up with male-biased research without necessarily realising it, but with real world implications. Think of the car crash test dummies, for example, that are supposed to represent “the average man”, leaving out women entirely, resulting into women being 47% more likely to be seriously injured than men in a car crash.  

 With STEAM Heroes, we are working on a curriculum with 31 modules, which are all centered around a “Hero”.  Each of the concepts explained in the curriculum would pass through historical scientific figures of the past, with an equivalent ratio of men and women. For example, the concept of gravity would be explained by Newton, and computer science would be explained by Lovelace. All these heroes packs will be composed of a short video, an adventure game, a pedagogical sequence and a hands-on activity. These are made so that any kind of person can enjoy learning about the chosen STEAM concepts. Within STEAM, we will harness the “T” through digital and technological tools, and bring in the “A” to focus on humanities, helping students develop creative skills by connecting history with science and math in practical, hands-on ways. As made online and reusable, these are eco-friendly and in line with the ERASMUS+ program. This project aims to teach and enhance creativity and critical thinking in students, men, women and people with SLD’s, allowing them to partake in any sort of STEAM career without fear of feeling not prepared enough. 

 Finally, all these activities will be made in 7 different languages (English, French, Romanian, Spanish, Galician, Macedonian and Greek) and will as such, aim for the target groups of these languages. Being funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ program, every resource that will be developed for STEAM Heroes is going to be free to use (under a license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Our goal is to spread digital autonomy through Europe for all, including SLD’s, students, men or women. 

While it may look like a colossal challenge, STEAM Heroes will be up to the task, and contribute to the development of a more engaging, accessible and inclusive STEM education. Keep an eye out for our soon-to-be-published free project resources.   

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