Abstract:

In many countries, the smal numbers of students studying the STEM related professions at university are showing a declining motivation to study natural and phisical subjects at school. The organising of school students’ creative STEM project activities is the one way to engage them in these subjects. STREAM implemented in Lithuania is the direction of education, combining science, technology, creative reading / writing, engeneering, art / design, mathematics in the development of students‘ projects. It is an extension of the usual STEM, successfully implemented in the system of non-formal education.

In Lithuania, in 2020, the first national competition for creative project work of 4th - 12th grade students “Living Prototypes of Artificial Systems” was conceived and organized seeking the goal to realise the idea of STREAM subjects integration. The competition took place in the creative workshop environment of the International scientific-practical conference “STREAM educational stream”. In 2022, the second such competition "Inventions that change the life of human civilisation" was organised.

According to the regulations of the project competition, the students had to prepare a project description in which they presented physical, chemical and mathematical characteristics of the product being developed, in addition the teams answered two interview questions: “What did you learn when creating the project?” and “What did you learn and understand about STREAM subjects? ”

The aim of this qualitative study is to analyze students' reflections and to summarize the experiences of the participants in order to reveal the aspects of motivation to learn STREAM subjects. The research problem is formulated by the questions: "What learning and collaboration experiences do students developing STREAM projects have and what attitudes do they improve towards STREAM subjects?". The sources of the research data are the descriptions prepared for the students' competition and their answers to the two previous questions during the presentation of the works. The respondents of the study are 9 teams (31 student) competing in the year 2020, and 13 teams (41 student) competing in the year 2022.

The results of the study show that students emphasize the importance of successful collaboration with classmates and their teachers, note the growing interest in project work as a technical way of constructing products based on engineering solutions, and are convinced of the interrelationships between natural and phisical science for the future technological developments.

Keywords:

STREAM, project work, educational experiences, motivation to learn STEM subjects, national competition.