The BLOOM “Teach bioeconomy!” competition winners announced

We are happy to announce the winners of the BLOOM “Teach bioeconomy!” competition, launched as part of the STEM Discovery Week 2019!

Between 25 March and 30 April 2019, the participants of the BLOOM Massive Open Online Course were invited to submit to the BLOOM “Teach bioeconomy!” competition their learning scenarios. The subject? Teaching bioeconomy in STEM lessons. The 36 eligible submissions were evaluated in a two-stage judging process. First, with an initial selection by European Schoolnet, and then, the winning entries being decided by the “Teach bioeconomy!” jury panel.

After careful consideration, 6 submissions were selected by the competition jury to be published in the BLOOM School Box! Together with the learning scenarios developed by the BLOOM Expert teachers already included in the School Box, they will serve as an inspiration to other teachers to integrate bioeconomy in their teaching with the purpose of increasing students’ interest in STEM studies.

The 3 winners and 3 finalists

First Prize: Don’t waste your waste! – Raising bioeconomy awareness (Olga Grigoriadou, Eleni Voukloutzi)

Second prize: Yeast, biofuels and novel biotechnology techniques (Iro Koliakou, Afroditi Kalkani)

Third prize: Let’s talk about bioenergy and our lives! (Lorena Elena Olaru)

Finalist entries:

• The benefits of composting – How we can produce organic fertilizer in our school garden (Olympia Bantouvaki and Niki Klonari)
• Biofuel production from fruit waste (Mustafa Bozoğlan)
• Back to the Future (Leyla Yağuş)

The three winning and three finalist submissions will be published in the BLOOM project repository by the end of June 2019.

The Jury Panel

• Maarten Kootstra, Wageningen Food & Biobased Research, the Netherlands
• Eirini Siotou, Nea Genia Ziridis, Greece
• Dr. Kiki Liadaki, Internationella Engelska Skolan (IES), Uppsala, Sweden
• Stella Magid-Podolsky, Technion-Israel institution of Technology (Haifa) and Tichon Hadash (Tel-Aviv), Israel

Prizes

The “Teach bioeconomy!” competition was organised by BLOOM – Boosting European Citizens’ Knowledge and Awareness of Bio-Economy Research and Innovation and supported by Scientix, the community of science education in Europe, who awarded the competition prizes:

• The first prize consists of 30 Scientix backpacks and 30 Scientix power banks;
• The second prize consists of 30 Scientix power banks and 30 Scientix nanotechnology gloves;
• The third prize consists of 30 Scientix nanotechnology gloves.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!