Abstract:

One of the good trends in modern education is the search for a balance between research and creative approaches in education in which theoretical knowledge does not remain elitist, closed in laboratories and classrooms but its application in real life and in the context of significant social activities is sought. STEAM Learning offers numerous opportunities and provokes a number of experiments in this regard.

This article presents the purpose, the idea, the content, the structure, the technology of creation and the methodology of presenting and popularizing an author's film about the Srebarna Biosphere Reserve - one of the natural sites under the protection of UNESCO in Bulgaria.

The film has been created in support of the idea of a green and digital Europe and is a work of students from the educational and research laboratory of ‘Cultural-Historical Heritage’, Specialty: ‘Pedagogy of Teaching in Bulgarian and Foreign Language’ - future teachers and teachers from the Silistra Branch of the Angel Kanchev University of Ruse . It will be presented for the first time at the Cross-Border STEM Fair of Ideas at the ‘Night of Scientists’ in October 2022 and then will be widely promoted on the Internet in connection with the round anniversaries that mark the history of the Biosphere Reserve.

Project-based learning implies distancing from conventional methods in the educational system. The collection and analysis of empirical material; the research activity carried out in the field; teamwork in the search for practical solutions; communicating with people from different social groups; interdisciplinary activities; critical thinking; self-reflection, finding technological solutions; the creative presentation of the team concept - all this implies work in locations other than the University. The Museum in Srebarna and the Biosphere Reserve itself have become a center - a main source of information, a research laboratory and a creative platform.

Learning in the Museum creates an opportunity to develop a number of skills in young people - they fit into a common research process, become a part of a larger community and have the opportunity to apply different modes of learning - independent research, working in groups, participating in discussions , communicating on a professional level with people from various institutions - museum workers, university professors, local people, scientists from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgarian and foreign ornithologists, nature enthusiasts.

The work on the author's film is an expression of syncretism between scientific knowledge and art and presents the connections between the natural world and the human world as a network that will be whole and preserving only if humanity knows and protects nature with mind and heart, with knowledge and imagination, the combination of which the philosophy of STEAM Learning offers. The knowledge and the values formed in this way will be creatively embodied in an artifact which will be not only a Memory - a connection with the past but also a Message - a connection with the future.

Keywords:

Education, innovative, interdisciplinary, ecology, film, digital.