Mobility in Avezzano

Objectives of the mobility in Italy

The original project had as main objective the waste management.

The idea was to think to robotics as a way to offer solutions to solve environmental problems.

This activity would have started in every school before the mobility, using a Project Based Learning (PBL) approach and the driving question for the project would have been:  how can robotics contribute to solve the waste problems? For the final product STEM teachers in every school would have to coordinate and guide the different projects towards the production of a prototype that could contribute to solving a local problem related to waste. The robot prototype would have been built with waste materials. Students would have tested their prototype and improve it. Finally, students would have prepared a presentation of the process that led to the final product and the product itself.

But we lost the expert we had in robotics as he changed school so, we felt the need to re-think our objective. Discussions have been held among the teachers and the students involved and the new idea was to repurposing and redesigning a disused public building in a sustainable context. This new project was explained to our partners in Braga, Portugal and immediately we set at work around it.

Once in Italy, a Scenario Based Learning (SBL) approach has been used to upgrade the project.

Scenario-Based Learning (SBL) is a strategy that is used extensively in online training and it uses an “active learning” approach, with real-life situations; it can check point of learning and help learners improve their decision-making skills.

Implementation

Thanks to the suggestion of one of our colleagues, an architect, we transformed STEM in STEAM, and we implemented the project reaching very good results. Instead of recycling waste, we decided to recycle a building! 

We also succeeded in giving Erasmus students some taste of robotics visiting a nearby school in Avezzano, IIS Ettore Majorana whose students are specialised in robotics, where they have been in contact with pieces of future.