Where did the Lab take place?

Johannes Kepler University Linz - JK Linz, Austria.

When did the Lab take place?

May 09-14, 2022.

Who participated in the Lab?

A total of 42 participants participated in the third Lab "Fun solution for societal challenges", including 9 students, 9 teachers and lecturers, 12 policy makers and 14 experts and students of the steering committee group. The participants in this Lab had very diverse expertise from different fields such as psychology, mathematics, education, economics, biology, engineering, and the like.

What was the topic of the Lab and why was it chosen?

"Fun solution for societal challenges" was the topic of the Linz Lab. In recent years, societal challenges like climate change, the aging population, energy security and others have emerged as key criteria for research promotion. Unlike a few years ago, when the majority of research programmes at the national, European, and international levels were organized by research subjects or disciplines, the current tendency is to create research programmes in a way that will help address the most pressing societal concerns. Such programmes frequently include the full innovation chain, from fundamental research through demonstration, and are typically interdisciplinary. In accordance with this, the topic of the Linz Lab was chosen, in order to encourage transdisciplinary thinking in solving social challenges by students and teachers through collaborative work. This topic of the lab was chosen in order to enable the participants of this lab, primarily students, to practically apply their knowledge and experience from their education up to now, but also from pre-school laboratories, and develop their creativity and transdisciplinarity. This is also in line with the organization of classes at JKU, especially at the faculty of the Linz School of Education, which deals with the development of creativity in STEAM education. In the future, the experience from this laboratory at JKU is planned to be used to organize summer or winter schools for talented students.

Major outcomes of groups’ projects:

We anticipated the following outcomes:

• Participation: A group of students and teachers from each institution that is a project partner.
• Preparation and Presentation: Participating fully and actively in the lab, taking part in workshops, developing projects, presenting, developing infographics, and giving feedback.

The participating students in the Linz STEM+ lab embarked on a creative and innovative project where they created infographics that showcased the correlation between the utilization of advanced educational technology and the various social challenges they face in their communities, cities, and states.

The topics they selected as societal challenges were diverse and thought-provoking, including:

• Exciting education with emerging technologies
• Reducing the negative impact of human activities on the environment
• Cultural differences & Communication
• Air that we breathe

Each of the infographics comprised three key elements:

• an insightful introduction that highlighted the problems at hand
• a solution-oriented proposal that emphasized the application of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) and advanced technologies
• a suggestion for utilizing cutting-edge technologies in education to tackle the pressing issue of defending the environment.

The students and teachers demonstrated remarkable creativity and critical thinking skills in their approach to addressing these complex challenges, and their infographics serve as a testament to the limitless potential of technology and education in shaping a better future.

Role and involvement of policy makers:

Policy makers had a double role in the Linz Lab. Their first role was to participate in discussion and support teachers and students in developing their ideas for the projects. Their second role was to provide feedback on the students’ and teachers’ projects and evaluate them. The purpose of this constructive feedback was to provide to the participants information for future improvements of their transdisciplinary projects.

Lessons learned from an organizational perspective:

During the realization of the Lab, we learned two important lessons that can be very relevant for organizing similar events. First, agendas are read differently in different cultures, in some cultures a delay of up to 30 minutes compared to the original plan is acceptable, in other cultures not. Future organizers should keep this in mind. The second lesson concerns co-creation, it is very important to ask the participants for their opinion during the event and to adjust the event itself as much as possible to the suggestions of the participants.

Impact: What do students say about the experience?

According to the lab evaluation survey, the overall majority appreciated the lab both in terms of contents, methods and organization.

**These are some indications collected by participants: **

The strongest points were:

• the ability to network with people from Europe, with peers interested in STEAM education and with policy makers
• exchanging experiences and discover insights from other educational systems
• the interactivity of the lab and the high engagement of students in the tasks
• The output: take a technical (critical) approach to science and technology
• Quote: “Gamification can help with fulfilling the purpose and focus of education and individual development.”

The most loved activities were the programming with reedu, the treasure hunt, the 3D printing, the discussions, group work and project development. Quote: “I personally prefer the actual discussion of a possible solution for societal challenges with my group members on Thursday. That is when I'm being productive and actually make something.”

Overall, respondents loved learning about practices in other countries and making connections to people with the same interests. Some respondents would have liked more transdisciplinarity included, some expected a link to the other labs and a clearer purpose of the task and a clearer goal for the lab.

Participants suggested some points that could be improved during the Lab:

• Team formation & team building should be at the very beginning of the programme
• have enough room for group work
• make sure to really include the transdisciplinarity in the lab or make it more visible.

As a final quote, a participant indicated that: “this lab has brought a lot of new perspectives and changes to me, mostly in terms of professional perspectives and individual philosophy on an intercultural scale. Therefore, I believe this lab experience will be relevant for my future career and personal life.”