Boosting STE(A)M Education through Open Schooling: Inspiring Learning Scenarios from SLEs
STE(A)M Learning Ecologies (SLEs) are learning ecosystems where schools work with local stakeholders (museums, companies, NGOs, universities, municipalities etc.) to co-design projects that respond to real community needs. Combining STE(A)M education—where STEM and non-STEM knowledge are seamlessly integrated—and the open schooling methodology, SLEs engage students to work on real challenges, use innovative tools, and create meaningful solutions, developing 21st century skills in the process.
With 109 projects, 16 countries and more than 4000 students involved, the project has been testing and refining its recipe to make STE(A)M learning relevant, engaging and a powerful means for societal impact. To inspire and help teachers, school leaders and community organisations set up impactful STE(A)M projects leveraging the benefits of Open Schooling, SLEs has curated 37 learning scenarios, selecting examples that stand out for innovation, collaboration in the community, and potential for replicability. These scenarios show what works and how any school or organisation, regardless of their experience, can adapt the SLEs methodology to their context to set up a transformative STE(A)M initiative.
What are the learning scenarios about?
The 109 SLEs implemented across the project cover primary, secondary and higher education levels, in both urban and rural settings in 16 countries. Their themes reflect the variety of community-relevant challenges, spanning from health and food systems to culture and inclusion, from digital innovation to climate, mobility and green cities. This variety showcases the potential of the SLEs methodology to adapt to different needs, school levels, community challenges and national priorities.
The 37 learning scenarios showcase how these initiatives were developed, and how meaningful collaboration with community actors can be replicated across European countries and beyond.
How to navigate the learning scenarios
All learning scenarios have been published on Scientix Resources (just type “SLEs” in the search bar. This system allows filtering by students’ age and STEM Strategy Criteria covered by the initiative).
To make these resources easier to explore, the project created the SLEs Portfolio showcasing each SLE, country by country. Each initiative page offers a snapshot of the community actors involved, the challenge it addressed with students, and the learning products created. The portfolio allows readers to quickly browse through the main elements of each SLE and access the Learning Scenarios they are most interested in (click on ‘Read More’).
Ready to create your SLE? Visit the Step-by-Step guide
The SLEs collection of learning scenarios complements the Create your SLE guiding tool to planning and implementing impactful STE(A)M Learning Ecologies. The tool guides users through the main steps of the SLEs Methodology, giving educators, organisations and companies the main ingredients to design impactful, community-relevant STE(A)M learning experiences.
