The Green Steam Project equips students with ecopreneurship skills for the circular economy

The Business Foundation for Education is part of the inspiring GREENovation & STEAMpreneurship (GREEN STEEM) project which was approved for funding with the highest evaluation in the field of Higher Education in Bulgaria.

It addresses students and graduates from STEAM fields of study, especially female learners, with no previous entrepreneurship knowledge or experience. The initiative aims to foster innovation, entrepreneurship spirit, growth mindset, build awareness on the issues of climate changes, sustainability, and environmental challenges, and promote key skills for change-making, such as collaboration, leadership, creative problem-solving, planning, and managing resources effectively, and presentation of ideas in a persuasive way.

To achieve this, the partnership will create an open learning platform with a flipped training course and toolkit with interactive materials for students and organize 6-month Hackathons, during which at least 250 students will exploit the training materials, take part in flipped labs facilitated by teachers, collaborate in solving real-world challenges faced by companies, and present the results in demonstration events.

The students’ learning journey will follow a flipped classroom model – they will get familiar with the module in advance as a home assignment, and then work together in learning labs on specific practical tasks and challenges, facilitated by the trainers. The partnership will apply the design thinking approach to promote innovative problem-solving. The process starts with inspiration from observing real-world problems and opportunities. Then, through empathy with clients, users, and customers, students research their needs and understand the essence of the problem. In the ideation phase, students generate ideas through brainstorming, thinking outside the box, and divergent and convergent thinking, typical of the design thinking process. In the implementation phase, they create prototypes that demonstrate and test the solutions chosen and assess them. Additionally, the partnership will apply the design thinking approach to facilitate innovative problem-solving.

The partnership includes 6 organizations from 5 countries. The team is coordinated by the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy in Bulgaria, and involves the Business Foundation for Education – Bulgaria, Akademia Humanistyczno-Ekonomiczna w Łodzi – Poland, University Of Cyprus from Cyprus and UnitelmaSapienza i Italy and Mindshift – Portugal.

The partnership will create a multilingual platform with open online courses containing 5 modules:

  • Entrepreneurship in STEAM,
  • Green Skills and Sustainable Entrepreneurship,
  • Innovation and Design Thinking in Entrepreneurship,
  • Digital Skills in Entrepreneurship,
  • Project Management and Social Skills in Entrepreneurship.

The Open learning platform will contain video lectures, digital exercises, a Toolkit with interactive resources, activities and methods, as well as guidelines for trainers and facilitators, that will be used during the Hackathon for mentoring and supporting students. The platform will include a digital exhibition of the students’ projects, developed during the Hackathon.

The open learning platform will be freely available in 6 languages – English, Bulgarian, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, and Greek. It will be tailored to the needs of students and female STEAM learners from diverse backgrounds. The gamification will provide a unique and memorable experiential learning environment, in which students will develop entrepreneurship knowledge, skills, and mindset at the same time.

The project results will be summarized in an impact report and showcased at the final multiplier events in each partner country.

Green Steam is a 24-month Erasmus+ project, co-funded with the support of the European Union. Project No: 2023-1-BG01-KA220-HED-000155940.

For more up-to-date news, see the project’s website https://greensteamproject.eu/ and follow the project’s social media:

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