For the sixth consecutive year, the scientific conference “Innovative STEM education” was organized by the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Science in Veliko Tarnovo.
The founder of Tinusaur – Mr. Neven Boyanov, was invited as a speaker, and our team presented some of its latest developments and projects during the exhibition part.
The conference was held from October 6-10 in Building 4 of Veliko Tarnovo University “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”.
The conference was attended by over 60 teachers from all over the country, with whom we could talk and exchange experiences. They showed great interest in our developments, and we even planned future joint initiatives and projects with some of them.
Mr. Boyanov had the opportunity to present his report in Session 4, STEM education, Innovations in learning, and the topic of his work was “STEMx – Extreme multidisciplinarity for programming, mathematics, physics, and biology interwoven into one agricultural educational project.“
Multidisciplinarity is at the core of the STEM approach to studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but this is still misinterpreted, and as a result, the different subjects are still taught separately. Combining them into a comprehensive curriculum presents educators with many new challenges.
While our team was working on a school project in agriculture, many of these challenges were identified and analyzed, and solutions were sought. STEMx, where “x” stands for extreme multidisciplinarity, suggests that all subjects included in the educational project should be taught together within the same lesson. In this way, the necessary knowledge and skills are acquired while establishing the relationship between the different sciences and are used to solve practical everyday problems.
The agricultural project presented was an automated irrigation system that takes care of a single plant.
The conference was also attended by the head of the National STEM Center – Prof. Nayden Shivarov, who, together with his team, presented the Science of the Rose – an integrated lesson in natural sciences: chemistry, physics, and biology.
We thank the organizers, particularly Prof. Dr. Eng. Galina Bogdanova, for the invitation and the opportunity to participate in the STEMedu 2024 international scientific conference.