Today, the “Regional Science Center – RaSTEM” project was presented in the Mayor’s Office, with a total value of 2,042,449.12 euros, which will be implemented from July 2022 to March 2024. The goal of the project, financed 100 percent from donor and national funds, is to establish a synergy in the development of formal and informal education for the purpose of developing a program for the STEM field, divided into two parts; one for students, the other for teachers.
To this end, last week in Zagreb, the City of Šibenik and the Ministry of Regional Development and European Union Funds signed a Grant Agreement for a project financed from the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area for the period from 2014 to 2021.
“We received a new approximately 15 million kuna for the development of the STEM field, which is related to primary school education. With the project, we will prepare young people for areas that can more easily provide them with a job in the future, which is especially important for Šibenik, because from the very beginning we strive for the development of higher education institutions specifically in STEM disciplines. By raising the level of education, we want to recruit both parents and children from elementary school to start those occupations that are especially potentiated by the current energy crisis that Europe is facing,” said Šibenik Mayor Željko Burić.
Five elementary schools founded by the City of Šibenik participate in the project, namely: Juraj Dalmatinac Elementary School, Juraj Šižgorić Elementary School, Meterize Elementary School, Vrpolje Elementary School, and Brodarica Elementary School with regional schools. Elementary schools from Murter and Skradin are also included. The partners in the project are the Croatian Robotics Association, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing from Zagreb and the University of Oslo.
“We have already equipped the Urban Center in the old city center, after that the dislocated study of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, then the Triangle as an entrepreneurial center, and now we will implement a project focused on STEM education. Given that the Norwegian fund co-finances the project with 85 percent, and the Republic of Croatia with 15 percent, this means for Šibenik that the project is 100 percent financed with external funds. Here, the main focus is on the establishment of a regional science center in primary education. When we talk about the center, we do not mean the facility that will be built, but we believe that the existing capacities, both human and physical in terms of schools and classrooms, will be upgraded in the STEM field, which is the English abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics , that is, the natural branches that include physics, mathematics, computer science, chemistry and biology, and it is precisely these five primary school subjects that we want to supplement with the project”, explained the deputy mayor of Milet.
As part of the project, classrooms will be arranged inside the schools, which will have additional infrastructure, and the emphasis is on robotics, meteorology, climatology and entrepreneurship. It is intended to educate a minimum of 15 teachers who will be able to educate not only children and other teachers, but also 200 children by the end of the project.
“The furnishing also includes the environment of Elementary School Meterize, where a park of approximately 300 square meters will be arranged, which will serve to educate children about climate change. One STEM park will be built in the environment of our Triangle, and Juraj Dalmatinac Primary School will receive a special upgrade for the STEM classroom. The education program for children is called ‘Novi Nikola Tesla’, while the teacher education is named after Tesla’s physics professor Martin Sekulić”, concluded Mileta, adding that the entire teaching program will be designed within the project and will permanently remain within these schools.
