The Kick off conference of the project Be a STEMfluencer was held on March 2nd 2023 in the Primary school Lučko who acts as the Project Promoter on behalf of five project partners. The project worth 734,405.40 euros is financed through the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area in the ratio of 85%, while the rest of the funds were provided by the Republic of Croatia within of the Local Development and Poverty Reduction Programme.
The conference was attended by representatives of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway, Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds, City of Zagreb, Agency for Education, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing of the University of Zagreb, representatives of the local government and other interest groups.
The overal goal of the project is strengthening the capacity of primary school education institutions in the Republic of Croatia in STEM teaching with the ultimate goal of improving the STEM skills of teachers, educational workers and students with focus to the students with special needs.
After the opening speech given by the school princilal of the Primary school Lučko, Mr. Pavo Šimović, topics related to the planned project activities were presented and discussed. Special attention was given to modernization of six STEM classrooms with modern equipment, which is a prerquisite for the introduction of STEM in regular classes and extracurricular school programmes, activities related to education of teachers, educational workers and students, as well as bilateral cooperation that the Croatian project partners Lučko Primary School, Primary School Vugrovec-Kašina, Primary School Nikola Tesla and Development Agency Zagreb established with the Norwegian GovTech company Åpenhet AS. The Norwegian partner will enable Croatian teachers to connect and cooperate with the best STEM experts with the possibility of job shadowing in schools in Oslo as part of the bilateral cooperation activities. As result of the joint work of Croatian and Norwegian teachers and experts, the project will create a digital tool designed by team members of the Norwegian partner, which will store STEM teaching materials for regular classes and extracurricular activities in the fields of robotics, astronomy, forensics, 3D modeling, activities in STEM garden, etc. Upon completion of the project, this digital tool called the STEM library will be available to all schools at the national level and facilitate their transition to STEM education.