Presentation of the mobile application "TeachOUT – outdoor science game" in Naturtejo Geop

The Naturtejo UNESCO Global Geopark and the José Silvestre Ribeiro Group of Schools from Idanha-a-Nova, the portuguese partners of the ESTEAM Project publicly presented the project and its main results. Thus, on March 27 and May 11 2019, they organized two workshops to present the ESTEAM Project - Enhancement of School TEAching Methods by linking between schools, experts and geoparks in combination with outdoor activities and ICT technologies (co-funded by the ERASMUS + Program) and the TeachOUT Mobile outdoor game. In the first workshop, 18 teachers from the School EB2,3 / S José Silvestre Ribeiro participated, having completed the theoretical part at the headquarters of the school and to test the App participated in a game created for this purpose in Tapada do Sobral, near the school area.

The second workshop was held at Monsanto, with the theoretical part held at the Tourism Office and the practice at the Boulders Trail. This was the chosen trail to test and build the game in Portugal. This second Workshop was supported by the Municipality of Idanha-a-Nova and was accredited as a short-term training course through the Center for Training of Association of Schools of Alto Tejo. At the Workshop "New Technologies, New Methodologies: Presentation of the TeachOUT Mobile Application", 43 teachers from educational institutions from various geopark municipalities and from other neighboring municipalities, from pre-school to higher education, participated. The first morning session was dedicated to the presentation of the ESTEAM Project. During the second morning session the main product resulting from the project, the "TeachOUT mobile application" and its potentialities as an educational resource to be used in interdisciplinary outdoor classes, was presented. In the afternoon the participants tested the TeachOUT App in the field, namely in the Boulders Trail, pedestrian trail located in the geomonument "Inselberg of Monsanto". The teachers, during the game, solved the challenges related to geology, biology and historical-cultural topics. The challenges included various teaching methods and outdoor activities based on prior research on learning / teaching needs and expectations, conducted to Norwegian, Slovenian and Portuguese students and teachers (project participants).

The two events had a great commitment and a very committed participation on the part of the teachers. The final product of the project will be a step-by-step Guide of the ESTEAM Methodology for Teachers, which will contain all the instructions and information on how to use the existing games and create the games for the students with the TeachOUT Mobile App, which will be available at the end of the project, in August 2019, on the website: www.esteamproject.eu.