The objectives of the summer school are:

• Introduce an overall STEAM methodology to teachers that meets the needs of different types of students and that harmonicall blends the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Art;
• Facilitate teachers in switching from a teacher-centred to a student-centred type of every day teaching and thus enable them to use an inquiry-based approach in their every day class;
• Enable teachers to design their own STEM curricula using a knowledge structure that overarches all science disciplines. Through a dedicated tool (the Science WAND), teachers will be able to use it in class with their students as a reference point in making connections between science topics taught in different disciplines and different grades as well as between subjects taught at school and everyday life.
• Foster interdisciplinary teaching by introducing innovative collaboration techniques between teachers of different science disciplines. The course will offer teachers the necessary tools to synchronize their teaching and facilitate the common, interdisciplinary creation of learning activities.
• Acquaint participants with activities on Arctic Research and Space topics and showcase how they can be used in the science classroom.
• Introduce learning tools that will enable teachers to develop their students’ digital skills.
• Introduce self-reflection and assessment tools that go beyond traditional assessment methods and focus on higher-order-thinking aspects of science that go beyond traditional assessment methods and focus on higher-order-thinking aspects of science.

Participating teachers will also be invited to be part of an active and growing community of practice to exchange and share ideas, experiences, concerns and educational resources with colleagues from all over Europe and beyond.

The PLATON Summer School is designed so as to promote collaboration among teachers and engage them in inspiring interactive sessions.

Participating teachers will be invited to work in small groups and complete a set of workshops. During the sessions, they will be encouraged discuss ideas and exchange experiences. Through these workshop participating teachers will be introduced to STEAM and Interdisciplinary Learning approaches while they will also get acquainted with methods and techniques that will allow them to introduce these concepts in their class gradually and at their own pace without having to step too much outside their comfort zone.  They will learn how to take the best of many worlds, use high quality learning tools and organize them under a methodological plan that designates how the tools can be apt for use in a complementary way as different elements of one seamless methodology. This way, they will optimise the use of each of these tools, ensure that they obtain a deeper understanding of the capabilities, functions and added value of each of them and that they are in position to decide and choose the best tool to be used depending on the needs of their class at any given point.

The course will last for 5 days, consisting of 15 hours in total plus another 8 hours of optional hands-on sessions.

Certain sessions of the summer school will be dedicated into analyzing the challenges the teachers will participate in and on building future collaboration between participants. Finally, special attention will be given to collecting feedback from participants through discussion and reflection activities.

This website will act as a main hub of communication and for sharing and distributing preparatory material with the participants. Participants will have a common workspace for uploading and downloading educational materials.

Participants will have to get acquainted with the training topics as well as the course methodology by accessing the materials and tools which will be available in advance through the website.

Before attending the summer school, participants will be asked to review some materials relative to the topic of the summer school and the methodologies that will be discussed. More specifically, they will need to familiarize themselves with educational materials that will be provided about learning-design and inquiry-based science education;

As a follow-up to the training course, the participants will be asked to make use of the activities they worked on during the summer school and share their work with the community of teachers.

As members of our community of science teachers, participants will be constantly informed about new initiatives they can participate in, as well as new activities they can choose to use. They have access to support provided by the training team, and they will be able to communicate their work and ideas with other science teachers in European countries and beyond, who have a common interest.

In order to assess the impact of the course, participants will have to answer, during and at the end of the course, a set of relevant questionnaires that will be provided by the course providers. The results of the questionnaires/survey or a so-called evaluation report will be available to all participants of the course.