CartoonED – Fostering STEM education for youth through educational cartoons methodologies and e-learning technologies

Context

Studies funded by the European Commission and conducted STEM communities have highlighted major issues regarding the situation of STEM in European education systems: the low attractiveness of STEM studies and careers and the unmet labour-market needs in STEM-related sectors that are expected to grow in the future.

According to the last PISA results (2018), more than one in five 15-year-olds in the EU cannot complete even simple tasks in the tested domain (22.4% mathematics & 21.6% science). Among the top five underachievers are Croatia, Cyprus and Romania. This shows our education system is still insufficient in the STEAM fields and there is an important task at our hand to help improve our educational results.

Educational cartoons are among the effective teaching materials used in the teaching process. According to the studies, cartoons should be integrated into course programs and teaching media, so that they can contribute to the teaching processes as other teaching technologies.

In addition, the COVID-19 crisis stressed the importance of digital education for the digital transformation that Europe needs.

What does the project want?

CartoonED project aims to contribute to digital transformation through development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity by creating a powerful e-learning platform on the topic of STEM education based on cartoon approach, as a teaching and learning method.

General objectives

• GO1 – To develop a creative e-learning platform, based on visual arts and aimed at fostering STEM education to youth, development of digital skills among youth and youth practitioners, raising awareness on social inclusion to youth and promotion of the diverse European cultural heritage in terms of language dialect among youth and youth professionals.
• GO2 – To integrate animation techologies and creative learning within educational processes through the creation of a unique innovative methodology that aims to make the most of cartoons as a pedagogical tool to teach STEM and to provide the youth practitioners and students with the tool to create their own educational cartoons in order to innovate learning.

The first direct target groups of this project are organizations, educational experts, project managers and youth practitioners working in the field of youth, non-formal education and innovation, STEM, digital skills development, cultural heritage and social inclusion.

The second direct target group of the project are 21 young people aged between 13 and 19 years old from Cyprus, Croatia and Romania participating within the project activities.

The indirect target groups: Stakeholders (private and public) that will benefit from the activities, findings and outcomes of this project, especially educational institutes in the partner countries. Project results will be disseminated to more than 600 young people with different backgrounds.

ACTIVITIES

Horizontal activities & Dissemination

• Project management and implementation lead by Asociatia Four Change
• Evaluation and quality assurance lead by RITE
• Dissemination and exploitation lead by One Youth

Expected results

A specially designed e-learning solution consisting of:

• 1 Methodological framework for STEM education for youth (7-18)
• 1 Learning programme for youth (13-18) that includes the development of digital skills, STEM education and raising awareness on social inclusion through role-model education methodologies
• 3 Educational cartoons on the topic of STEM education made by youth (13-18) for youth (7-13). The cartoons include socially disadvantaged youth as cartoon characters in order to raise awareness on social inclusion. They will be synchronized in English and in 3 certain language dialects of the partners.

ACTIVITIES

On top of the horizontal activities of the project, which are project management, quality assurance and dissemination the main activity of the project is an e-learning platform, an open source resource, aimed at teaching STEM and digital skills to youth, as well as promotion of social inclusion and european cultural heritage among youth and youth practicioners.

WP1 Horizontal activities & Dissemination 

Horizontal activities are:

WP1A1- Project management and implementation lead by Asociatia Four Change

WP1A2- Evaluation and quality assurance lead by RITE

WP1A3 – Dissemination and exploitation lead by One Youth

WP2 A1 CartoonED research phase

Expected result – 1 methodological framework for STEM education for youth (7-13) 

The first part of research will focus on determining the school subjects in STEM field mostly

underachieved by high-schoolers (13-19), and that show poor results among the Primary School students (7-13).

The second part of the research focuses on determining the most socially excluded youth types in Croatia, Cyprus and Romania.

Last phase of research focuses on:

1. a) educational cartoons methodologies and techniques (state of the art, good practices, the overall benefits of these methods in NFE for youth, existing programmes, activities and projects that the partners are currently doing regarding STEM education for youth).
2. b) research and selection of tools to be used for cartoon making.

WP2A2 CartoonED development phase

Expected result:

• 1 learning programme of 10-14 days, for youth (13-18) that includes the development of digital skills, STEM education and raising awareness on social inclusion through role model education methodologies.
• 3 educational cartoons on the topic of STEM education made by youth (13-18) for youth (7-13)

The programme content will be peer reviewed in the first phase of the evaluation;

After evaluation the programme will be pilot-tested with the target group (21 youth 13-14) in each of partner countries;

The caroons syncronization in partner languages will be developed in specific dialect of area the partners are established.

Duration: 01/01/2023 – 01/05/2024

Project Number: 2022-3-RO01-KA210-YOU-000096793

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.