Mind over Matter is an Erasmus+ European project for students aged 13-18 years that uses an innovative methodology inspired by design thinking to introduce young people to STEAM and STEAM careers and help them understand that they are within everyone’s reach. The MoM project distinguishes STEM and STEAM careers in the following way: STEM encourages a deep specialisation within a scientific discipline while STEAM educational activities integrate arts and creativity with a wide range of sciences in an interdisciplinary approach. Through the MoM methodology, the experts of the consortium want to develop approaches to teaching based on a non-traditional format that demystifies subjects such as science, mathematics, and scientific processes generally seen as complicated in order to increase the confidence of young people who are unattracted to these areas.

The project is based on running pilots that differ in duration and end results. Using 4 decks of cards developed by the partners related to 4 different themes (steam careers, actions, SDGS, objects related to arts and creativity) ideas are identified and then they can be materially developed by the students in the creation of a model. The STEAM card game developed within the MoM project starts when the participants select one card from each deck and develop a guiding question that includes the words of all the cards, the different ideas identified are materially developed into the creation of a prototype.

To test the MoM methodology, 40 STEAM pilot projects will be developed and tested with 500 young people online and offline. At the end of the project, the various groups of students who participated in the pilots and produced the prototype will be able to participate in the Makeathon, an event to be held in Sweden, during which the final selection and award ceremony will take place.

The Mind over matter project is developed and implemented by AIN – Industrial Association of Navarra (Spain), Centre of Technical Culture Rijeka (Croatia), CRHACK LAB FOLIGNO 4D (Italy), MTF Labs (Sweden), and Siauliai Youth Technical Center (Lithuania). The project is funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ program.

BySGI