Upskilling prospective teachers in STEAM for elevating out-of-school learning for all, Up-sTEAm Erasmus+ Project

The Up-sTEAm project has successfully concluded, equipping the next generation of European educators with the skills, tools, and confidence to design and deliver inclusive, innovative STEAM activities for non-formal learning settings, and bringing those activities to life in science museums, summer schools, and community spaces across four countries.

Up-sTEAm, short for Upskilling Prospective Teachers in STEAM for Elevating Out-of-School Learning for All, is an Erasmus+ project (Project number: 2023-1-NL01-KA220-HED-000152303) and it was designed to address a well-documented gap: while STEAM education is increasingly prioritised across Europe, university students training to become teachers or science communicators receive very little preparation for designing and delivering inclusive STEAM activities in non-formal contexts such as science museums, afternoon clubs, and summer camps.

The project tackled this gap, by developing an open-access training programme, a digital toolkit, and a transnational network of practitioners, all grounded in the principle that STEAM learning should be accessible and meaningful for every pupil, regardless of their background, learning abilities, or gender.

Who participated:

The project brought together five complementary organisations from four EU member states, combining academic expertise in STEAM education with hands-on experience in curriculum design, non-formal learning, and digital innovation:

University of Groninger, Netherlands (as the coordinator)
Inquiry Fuse, Cyprus
University of Nicosia, Cyprus
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain
Stimmuli for social change, Greece

Together, the consortium brought expertise spanning science and STEAM education research, instructional design, educational technology, digital platforms, curriculum development, and EU project management, a combination that ensured rigorous, innovative, and practically grounded outcomes.

What was the purpose?

Up-sTEAm set out to provide university students, future teachers and science communicators, with the knowledge, skills, and practical experience needed to design inclusive, meaningful STEAM activities for non-formal learning environments. The project recognised that non-formal settings offer unique advantages: flexibility, real-world relevance, and the freedom to engage pupils who may struggle in traditional classroom contexts.

At the same time, the project championed inclusion and equity, ensuring that the training materials and activities explicitly addressed the needs of pupils with learning disabilities, multilingual learners, and those facing gender-related barriers to STEAM engagement. A commitment to digital transformation ran throughout, with university students learning how to meaningfully integrate digital and emerging technologies into their instructional designs.

Key results and achievements:

The project delivered all planned outputs and fully achieved its objectives. Below are the headline results:

More than 120 university students trained across four countries
5 STEAM training modules developed
1 digital toolkit launched, multilingual and free
4 local events in each partner country to further disseminate the project
10K+ Eu citizens reached through the consortium dissemination activities
1 international final conference in Netherlands.

The centrepiece of the project is the Up-sTEAm Training Package, five thematic modules covering STEAM concepts, inclusive pedagogy, instructional design, classroom orchestration, and digital integration. The package was co-developed with local stakeholder forums in each partner country and validated by the target groups themselves. It is aligned with the European Qualifications Framework (EQF level 6) and available as an open educational resource in English, Dutch, Greek, and Spanish.

The Up-sTEAm Digital Toolkit, led by the University of Nicosia, provides a self-paced online learning environment where users can complete the training, connect with peers, and access multimedia resources including video recordings from real implementation sessions. Gamification elements, badges, progress bars, and achievement unlocking, were incorporated to keep learners engaged throughout.

In the project’s implementation phase, university students in all four countries completed the training and went on to design their own STEAM activities, which they then delivered to primary school pupils in real non-formal settings, including science museums, community centres, and summer school programmes. These experiences gave participants direct, authentic professional preparation and generated a rich library of good practice examples now available on the project website.

Links:

Website: https://up-steam.eu/about/