Tuesday 3 September 2024
The GenB and Life Terra projects co-organised an online workshop with Scientix® to present their work on bioeconomy education and environmental sustainability to members of the Scientix Ministries of Education STEM representatives Working Group and their guests. In addition, the aim was to demonstrate the online tools and resources developed within the projects, which are available to educators and include teacher training, hands-on labs and multilingual toolkits. The purpose was to gain insights from the representatives of the Ministries of Education on how to shape the project outcomes to maximise their impact.
The event, entitled “Policy Briefs in STEM Education”, brought together 20 representatives from 15 Ministries of Education to discuss how to produce effective policy briefs for STEM education and to learn how to ensure that these documents meet the needs of both policymakers and educators, while also gaining invaluable insights from EU-funded projects.
During the workshop, participants were introduced to three types of policy supporting documents: the detailed Report on Policy Recommendations, the more concise Policy Brief, and the succinct two-page Policy Digest. They then explored how they could be used, focusing on targeting teachers.
Participants highlighted the importance of clear categorisation and concise messaging in sharing EU policy documents with educators and policymakers. The emphasis was on the need to tailor the formats to specific audiences, with shorter digests being ideal for teachers and detailed reports for deeper policy exploration. Representatives from Ministries of Education (MoEs) stressed the need for evidence-based documents that provide practical insights and support the curriculum reform. In addition, they called for better classification of project outputs and resources, ensuring they align with national education systems. The discussion confirmed the value of these documents in bridging EU and national policies, with further talks planned on integrating bioeconomy, oceans, and trees into education.
Based on the results through this workshop and the lessons learned from projects, policy recommendations related to bioeconomy, oceans and trees will be developed, refined and presented in a second online workshop. This will undoubtedly strengthen the link between STEM education and global challenges. The aim of this second workshop will be to present and discuss recommendations for integrating these areas into STEM education and aligning EU policies with national education reforms.
Find more information about the workshop outcomes here:
https://files.eun.org/scientix/MoE-STEM-WG_2024-ws1-Sep-03_summary-v11-final.pdf