The ‘BLOOM Stories’ competition
Organized in collaboration with the STEM Discovery Campaign 2020, the ‘BLOOM Stories of Implementation’ competition is going online and becomes the ‘BLOOM Stories’ Competition!
Given the current situation, we believe that adapting the competition to the online environment can be an innovative way of engaging students with current issues facing today’s society. That’s why, the BLOOM competition evolves and invites primary and secondary school teachers of all subjects to organise online activities, whenever possible, and use bioeconomy as a way of engaging pupils in school subjects!
Teachers who already had the chance to organize activities with their students, in their classroom or virtually, can take part in the competition by submitting their stories of implementation. Teachers who haven’t had the opportunity to implement their bioeconomy activities in their classroom still have a chance to participate to the competition by writing a story of adaptation!
What is a story of adaptation?
Unlike stories of implementation, stories of adaptation don’t have to be implemented in the classroom. To write and submit their entries, teachers must read the BLOOM School Box bioeconomy learning scenarios and write down how they would adapt them to fit online teaching. Simple isn’t it? Scroll down to know more about the competition!
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[Update 18/03/2020] In order to contribute to the collective efforts aiming at curbing the widespread of Covid-19, all partners of the 2020 STEM Discovery encourage everyone to consider, whenever possible, organising online events such as: learning scenario implementations, webinars, chats, discussion boards, quizzes etc.
As many countries close schools and some of them look more into online teaching, we would like to support all educators in finding out new, engaging ways of involving students in online activities.
The team behind the 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign and associated competitions will do its best to support teachers and schools in this challenging situation. We will provide regular updates with useful tips on how to work online and lists of online tools you can use to bring your classroom into the virtual environment!
On the BLOOM bioeconomy website, we offer free learning material, such as our repository, a searchable tool of bioeconomy and circular economy information and educational content, videos, virtual experiments, etc. Also free and available for all teachers, the BLOOM SchoolBox is a collection of teaching resources which STEM educators can use to introduce the concept of bioeconomy. If you are looking for more online teaching and learning resources, you can also explore the Scientix Resource Repository for more ideas!
We are aware that the situation is different in every country and it’s changing rapidly, therefore we primarily advise you to follow the recommendations provided by your local authorities and we leave the decision to organise a live event or an online activity up to you.
Despite the situation being unusual and challenging for educational institutions, we are convinced that now is the time to learn more about adapting schools to online environment, testing new tools and developing digital skills of both teachers and pupils.
We are looking forward to reading your stories!
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Online support available for participants
The organizer of the 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign, Scientix, the community for Science Education in Europe, is offering support to every teacher who would like to carry on an online activity by providing access to the Scientix Online Meeting Room.
As partners of the 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign, we, the team behind BLOOM Stories of Implementation Competition, encourage you to use the Scientix Online Meeting Room to organise online activities with your students and take part in the Competition! You can find the guidelines and schedule for the use of the Scientix Online Meeting Room on the STEM Discovery Campaign page!
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How to participate?
The ‘BLOOM Stories’ competition will reward the most innovative classroom implementations and adaptations of bioeconomy using the materials included in the BLOOM School Box, in four different categories of submission:
[1] Teaching bioeconomy in primary schools (individual work);
[2] Teaching with bioeconomy in secondary schools' STEM classes (individual work);
[3] Integrating STEM teaching with bioeconomy (teams of two STEM teachers of different subjects);
[4] Integrating STEAM teaching with bioeconomy (teams of up to three teachers of different subjects, including at least one STEM teacher and at least one non-STEM teacher)
When?
Teachers can submit their stories of implementation and stories of adaptation between 1 February and 30 April 2020 at 23:59 Central European Time (CET)!
The winners of each category will be invited to a teacher training workshop in Brussels, with travel, accommodation and meals covered, and the 20 finalist entries will be published on the School Network page of the BLOOM project! The finalist entries will be published on the School Network page of the BLOOM project! European Schoolnet might adapt the prizes should the event in Brussels not be possible.
Steps to participate:
1) Choose which BLOOM School Box resource would work well in your classroom from the BLOOM School Box collection
2) Think of how you would implement bioeconomy in your classroom and if you would work collaboratively with other colleagues or on your own.
3) If you can, run one online bioeconomy lesson with your students and think about what evidence you have of your students’ engagement following your lesson(s). If you can’t organize an online activity with your students, just write how you would organize a bioeconomy lesson based on one of the BLOOM Schoolbox learning scenarios with your students, and think about what evidence you could have of your students‘ engagement following your lesson.
4) Choose the appropriate submission category, double check the competition’s terms and conditions and fill in the submission forms.
COMPETITION TOOLKIT
STEM Discovery Campaign submission form BLOOM Submission form Story of Implementation template Story of adaptation template Permission form (students) Permission form (adults) The BLOOM Schoolbox resources Competition’s Term and ConditionsApplications are only valid if you click submit at the end of both submission forms
You would like to participate but not sure if you are eligible? Read the competition framework to stack all the odds in your favour!
- What are the competition categories?
- Who can participate in the competition?
- What are the steps to follow?
- How does the judging process work?
- Awards
- Notification of winners
- Organising online events
To participate teachers are asked to submit their “story of implementation and/or story of adaptation” of bioeconomy concepts in their classrooms by filling in a pre-defined template and submitting it in one of the four different categories of the competition:
[1] Teaching bioeconomy in primary schools (individual work); [2] Teaching with bioeconomy in secondary schools´ STEM classes (individual work); [3] Integrating STEM teaching with bioeconomy (teams of two STEM teachers of different subjects); [4] Integrating STEAM teaching with bioeconomy (teams of up to three teachers of different subjects, including at least one STEM teacher and at least one non-STEM teacher) The entry requirements for each competition category are the following: [1] Entry requirements for the category: Teaching with bioeconomy in primary schools (individual work) Participants in this category must be primary school teachers who wrote a story of implementation or a story of adaptation of at least one of the BLOOM School Box resources. The story submitted must be the work of one individual primary school teacher to be eligible for participation in this category. [2] Entry requirements for the category: Teaching with bioeconomy in secondary schools´ STEM classes (individual work) Participants in this category must be secondary school teachers of one or more STEM subjects who wrote a story of implementation or a story of adaptation of at least one of the BLOOM School Box resources. They should teach Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM). The story submitted must be the work of one individual secondary school STEM teacher to be eligible for participation in this category. [3] Entry requirements for the category: Integrating STEM teaching with bioeconomy (collaborative teaching) Participants in this category will be secondary school STEM teachers, applying in teams of two, who have collaborated in the implementation, or collaboratively written a story of adaptation of at least one of the BLOOM School Box resources. They should teach Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM). The story submitted must be the work of two secondary school STEM teachers of different subjects to be eligible for participation in this category. [4] Entry requirements for the category: Integrating STEAM teaching with bioeconomy (collaborative teaching) Participants in this category will be secondary school STEM teachers and teachers of other subjects, applying in teams of up to three, including at least one STEM teacher and at least one non-STEM teacher. The teams have collaborated in the implementation or in the conception of the story of adaptation of at least one of the BLOOM School Box resources. The story submitted must be the work of up to three secondary school teachers as detailed above to be eligible for participation in this category.The Competition is open to all primary and secondary school teachers from European Union countries and Horizon 2020 associated countries who implemented a BLOOM School Box learning scenario, in their classroom or virtually, and/or who wrote a story of adaptation on how they would implement a BLOOM School Box learning scenario in their classroom. Only entries in English, which follow the official competition template and which are submitted during the official submission period will be eligible for this competition. The authors of any of the 11 BLOOM School Box learning scenarios are also eligible as long as their story of implementation and/or story of adaptation is not based on their own work.
Participation in the competition is subject to the rules and terms and conditions, please read the document for more details.During the submission period of the competition, teachers can submit their entries by going through the following steps:
Step 1: Prepare their bioeconomy “stories of implementation” and/or “stories of adaptation” according to the competition template. Step 2: Fill in the online submission form of the STEM Discovery Campaign1. On the first page, agree to the Terms and Conditions.
2. On the second page, fill in the details of “Organiser & activity/action information”. For: “Do you want to take part in the 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign competitions?”, select the answer choice: “Yes, I want to continue to learn more about which competitions I can participate in”
3. In the section “STEM Discovery Campaign Competitions” please select: “I have been instructing my students about bioeconomy issues and organised activities integrating bioeconomy in the classroom or have been writing a story of adaptation on how I would do it (BLOOM)”. This will lead you to the next section, about the ‘BLOOM Stories’ Competition.
4. Read the ‘BLOOM Stories’ competition section carefully, and please click on the link that leads to the BLOOM submission form.
The submitted work should:
Follow the official "Story of implementation" and/or “Story of adaptation” template,
Be one standalone document, no attachments will be considered that are not part of the submitted “Story of Implementation” or “Story of adaptation” template.
Be completely original and not contain any third party’s work.
By participating in the competition, participants agree to present their submitted content under a Creative Commons License of Attribution ShareAlike CC BY-SA.
The entries will be considered at two stages:
1. A first selection of 20 finalist submissions (5 for each category) will be carried out by European Schoolnet. 2. The winner(s) of each category will be selected by an international panel of judges including bioeconomy experts and education specialists from the BLOOM project partner organisations. In order to evaluate the submissions to the BLOOM Stories competition, the judges will particularly pay attention to the following criteria: • Alignment with BLOOM and the chosen School Box resource • Creativity and innovation – how the resource was incorporated in the classroom • Impact and evidence– clear presentation of learning outcomes and supporting evidence • Clarity of ideas and conclusions - explaining in a clear way, demonstrating a good understanding of the theme and conveying convincing implementation methods, solutions and messages • Presentation of entries: style, layout, design and good use of technology will be considered • Sharing good practice – clear advice points and learning tips to help other teachers, to take a similar approach in the future. For participants in categories 3 and 4 (collaborative teaching) – clear presentation of aspects related to collaborative work and of the outcomes of the collaboration.1) Following the judging process, one submission from each category will be selected. The winners of each category will be invited to a teacher training workshop in Brussels, with travel, accommodation and meals covered. European Schoolnet might adapt the prizes should the event in Brussels not be possible.
2) The 20 finalist “stories of implementation or stories of adaptation” will be published online on the School Network page of the BLOOM project. 3) All participants whose submissions comply with the Terms and Conditions of participation will receive a certificate of participation where the name of a registered participant and country will be specified.Potential winners will be contacted by the end of May by BLOOM representatives via the contact information provided in the submission form.
The organizer of the 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign, Scientix, the community for Science Education in Europe, is offering support to every teacher who would like to carry on an online activity by providing access to the Scientix Online Meeting Room.
As partners of the 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign, we, the team behind BLOOM Stories of Implementation Competition, encourage you to use the Scientix Online Meeting Room to organise online activities with your students and take part in the Competition! You can find the guidelines and schedule for the use of the Scientix Online Meeting Room on the STEM Discovery Campaign page!