Providing Creative Environments for Young STEM Talents’ Research Projects

Abstract

Innovative research projects are especially suited for supporting talents by bringing them into close contact with state-of-the-art research and development in the area of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). A stimulating project with clearly defined objective groups of gifted school students can raise their limits of previous knowledge. By means of self-structured team action they are enabled to conduct targeted research and develop a defined innovative result—A product. This paper presents two practical examples of aerospace-related school student research projects, namely, the “TALNET Robotics-Dart Contest” with Charles University Prague and the Hector Seminar Project “Galileo Simulator,” including their basic conception, organizational conditions, and the essential aspects of planning and implementation. The supporting and stimulating role of teachers, university students and scientists is emphasized, especially by initiating a creative project idea and by structuring the project in an adequate way: Due to the great importance of creativity for all phases of such projects, the basic concepts of creativity and giftedness are addressed. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that project-based learning (PBL) provides a suitable concept for such complex research activities.