From August 25th to 28th of this year, JUMP hosted another training session on new educational models—STEM, STEAM, and STREAM. These paradigms transcend disciplinary boundaries and add creative competencies (the ‘A’ in the STEAM acronym represents ‘Arts’) as well as reading, writing, and application of scientific knowledge competencies (the ‘R’ in the STREAM acronym represents ‘Reading’, ‘Writing’, and ‘Robotics’) to the essential mathematical, scientific, and technical education both required and needed in the modern world. This time, JUMP’s guests were two teachers—of geography and biology—from Daugavpils Iespēju Vidusskola in Latvia.
The course was characterized by a cozy atmosphere, which doesn’t mean it was lacking in lively discussions and intensive cooperation.
Right from the introduction to the essential part of the course, which covered the tradition of critical-thinking philosophy present for centuries in European thought (drawing mainly from the Socratic legacy as interpreted by Plato), it became clear that the participants were intellectually vibrant individuals, genuinely interested in the contemporary philosophical and scientific dimensions of critical thinking. The spontaneous discussions that arose during this part of the course covered a broad spectrum of topics, from questions about human nature and the conditions for the manifestation of its various aspects—based on 20th-century and the latest psychological research—to the issue of skillful science popularization that promotes a better interdisciplinary understanding of scientific findings. This part of the course, which could easily be described as a lecture-and-discussion session, took up half of the time devoted to the first day’s substantive content, which was the second day of the entire training. During the second part of that day’s substantive sessions, a lecture was held for the participants, accompanied by a presentation that systematized knowledge about the history and key principles of the new educational paradigms.
The second day of the substantive sessions was primarily dedicated to lecturing on and collectively discussing the scientific foundations of the new teaching approach’s effectiveness, as well as to exchanging educational experiences.
It quickly became apparent that the course participants were already well-acquainted with both the STEAM tradition and the experimental implementation of the latest scientific research findings. One of them, a biology teacher who is currently writing her doctoral thesis, shared her knowledge of the latest discoveries in her field. In particular, she discussed findings related to recycling possibilities, which she is testing at school by leading scientific projects with students. Examples include creating items of daily use from biomass and checking the effectiveness of selected biological agents in breaking down waste that is resistant to natural decomposition into harmless, natural components.
The participants had also previously led interdisciplinary school projects. Towards the end of the second day of the substantive sessions (and the third day of the course), they were particularly interested in exchanging experiences regarding art and technology, understood as activities and tools that support the learning process and the popularization of scientific outcomes.
Consequently, after discussing their knowledge and experience in this area, I shared the results of my own work as a graphic designer and teacher, which I also conduct in collaboration with JUMP.
My work with children and adolescents is situated at the intersection of art, visual interpretation, advertising, publishing graphics, and science popularization. Subsequently, I shared my knowledge with the participants concerning online resources—specifically those that are useful, free, and/or easy to integrate into school use, and that are characterized by relatively high intuitive usability while providing fully professional results.
This part of the course was a hands-on-training session; due to the size of the group, it was possible to conduct it on a single computer. The examples of work I presented, such as the school newspaper project and a storyboard for an original book trailer, were appreciated by the participants as valuable ways to increase students’ sense of agency and to solidify knowledge through a practical, project-oriented approach. Among the works presented were also book trailers made by students from the M. Kopernik Secondary School of Economics in Kielce, which were created in collaboration with JUMP and participated in the second international book trailer competition at the EuroSoul Festival 2025 in Soverato. During the final part of that day’s morning session, I presented the participants with examples of detailed STEM, STEAM, and STREAM lesson plans and a framework for outdoor activities, during which their task was to create a draft of their own STREAM-based lesson plan and gathering the materials needed for its implementation.
The afternoon session on that day focused on preparing a conceptual lesson plan and gathering the aforementioned materials, which turned out to be photos and biological specimens intended for further documentation and description. The participants created their own conceptual framework for the lesson plan, dividing the educational activities for students into three groups in order to illustrate the human impact on Soverato’s natural environment. In their design, they took into account the possibility of a longer stay for students in Soverato than a single-day trip and included scientific activities that could be conducted at Villa Gabriella, the main location for JUMP’s educational courses. The project (completed during the following day’s morning session), which is characterized by outstanding ecological awareness, realistic practical design, and significant scientific potential, was evaluated by JUMP as possible for implementation in the future, thus opening up the possibility for further collaboration.
After the course, the participants received additional materials for self-study, which included topics such as organizational and pedagogical methods for supporting cooperation among teachers of different fields, ways to train computational thinking in circumstances without the possibility of teaching coding or even without computers, podcast materials containing multi-faceted developments on the topic of critical thinking, as well as links to pre-made STEM and STEAM lessons and valuable websites dedicated to the discussed subject.
Author: Maja Piotrowska-Krawczyk (JUMP Trainer)
