
Share
22nd November 2018
02:45pm GMT

“Teams of four design a model and make it move, learning basic engineering and early STEAM skills. "They document their work and celebrate their achievements, all the time operating under the FIRST core values of celebrating discovery and teamwork and having fun”.Programme work takes place during class time and the school hosts a Discovery Event to showcase the work to family, students and the wider community. The two Dublin pilot schools have education support resources from Learnit and DCU. They will also receive LEGO equipment and materials valued at more than €2,500. This will them embed the programme within the school so that all children can engage with the STEM ideas, skills and principles. The final Junior Discovery programme sessions will be taking place on Monday, November 26 next in the DCU LEGO Education Innovation Studio. This will be a way to showcase and celebrate the brilliant and exciting work that the schools are doing.
Professor Deirdre Butler highlighted the importance of having the initiative linked with the DCU LEGO Education Innovation Studio, adding:
Learnit has introduced the FIRST LEGO League concept to a number of schools in Ireland in the past three years. They have rolled out competitions for students aged from 11 to 16 years in the main League competition and a Junior League designed for those aged from six to ten. More than 70 teams will participate in four separate Irish tournaments this year. The new Junior Discovery programme is a non-competitive introduction for younger children.“The opportunity to be centrally involved in this initiative contributes to our goal of creating an interactive learning hub that will help DCU student teachers and Irish schools develop innovative and creative approaches to designing learning environments which ignite a passion for learning STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) concepts & skills from early childhood education right through to third level.
"By adopting Lego®’s playful learning tools, with a ‘Hands-on Minds-on’ mindset in a supportive learning environment, all students can develop key competencies such as creative thinking, problem-solving, team-working and communication”.
Explore more on these topics: