The final ESTEAM Project partner meeting in Idrija UNESCO Global Geopark

Idrija Tourism Board hosted the last, 7th partner meeting in the ESTEAM project. The meeting took place in Idrija Geopark, Slovenia, between 12th and 13th June 2019. On the final meeting all seven partners in the project met one more time to review all the work done and to plan final activities, which will be implemented untill the end of the project in September 2019.

Three years have passed since the first ESTEAM project partners meeting. During this time partners successfully carried out various activities: several partner meetings, implementation of intellectual outputs and promotional activities, learning, teaching and training activities and an multiplier event intended for teachers, who want to teach with the help of the new TeachOut Application. Some finalizing of the intellectual outputs and promotional activities will also take place in the following months.

During regular meetings and three years of intense cooperation partners developed the TeachOut Application, which enables teachers and educators to set a game with various tasks for children/pupils in local environment. The teacher structures the game in a CMS application, he/she forms points with tasks, questions or information assigned. The game can be published online and is then available in the TeachOut Application, which pupils download on their smart phone or tablet. The GPS-based application leads a student from point to point along a pre-set path, at stop-points questions or assignments appear on their smart device. In this way students are introduced to different content, they explore the environment/surrounding and discover various learning content in the field instead of learning in a classroom.

The TeachOut Application is the main and the most important ESTEAM project output, so possible improvements, corrections, testing and future use of the application were main discussion points at the final meeting. Partners also debated the conclusion of the project and the last intellectual result – A Step by Step guide. Part of the discussion also focused on the obligations that partners have for preparing a final report with proving different financial costs.

At this final meeting, Idrija partners also wanted to show other participants, how beautiful Idrija Geopark is. First day of the partner meeting took place at the idyllic surrounding of Kendov dvorec, and the second day at the Hleviška planina Hut. Foreign guests could observe some of the natural heritage sites and landmarks – natural swimming pool ‘’Lajšt'', natural water pools called ''Bučke’’ and different interpretation sites at Idrija Geopark.

All of the partners expressed satisfaction with the project results and successful conclusion of main outputs, although all wish for the new TeachOut Application to live on also after the project ending. The meeting was concluded with the decision that partners try to find ways and means to continue and upgrade the extensive work done in the ESTEAM project.