Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa: 2023 open school event
On the 31st of May, an open school event was held at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL) within the purview of the PAFSE project, funded by the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. ISEL is one of the partners and its pilot schools are: high school José Gomes Ferreira, elementary school Pedro de Santarém, 2,3 Filipa de Lencastre, high school Padre António Vieira, EB23 Almirante Gago Coutinho, EB23 Luís de Camões, high school António Damásio and high school Dom Dinis.
This project aims to motivate young people to STEM areas and has intervention trough 7th to 9th school years. During the open school day at ISEL, students showed their final work with the posters idealized in a group related to public health and the environment, based on gamification resources in engineering. These posters were displayed in the main atrium, providing students with the ability to observe the work of other colleagues inserted in the project and to exchange impressions. ISEL has developed 3 educational scenarios: Droplets and the physics of virus transmission; Energy sources and public health impact; Noise pollution and quality of life.
The students and teachers present had the opportunity to visit some of ISEL’s laboratories and to get to know some of the research that teachers and students do. These activities were aimed to encourage students to choose the area of engineering and teachers to identify synergies.
The day was filled with activities. The students who implemented one of the scenarios had the opportunity to try the tools and games of the other scenarios: simulations of the spread of diseases by air, the game about the impacts of the selection of primary sources for energy consumption and virtual reality of noise exposure. In addition to the pilot schools, some professional schools (Ciências Geográficas, Gustavo Eiffel, Cenfim and Escola Digital Rumos) were present, majority of which are also partners of the project (https://pafse.eu/pafse-stakeholders/), the FLL- First Lego League, the Toyno (https://toyno.com) and some parents and friends. The school Zespól Szkól nr 2 im Jana Kochanowskiego from Łańcut, Poland, was also present.
The target of the project was reached, as students saw the outcome of their work, having an idea of how they might approach projects in the future, and some of them showed an interest in following the engineering area. But above all, the project was a great learning for both schools, teachers and students, as for the project organizers. The event started at 9 a.m. and was scheduled to end at 1 p.m. Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. ISEL welcomed about 600 students and teachers.
