Selected examples of cooperation between universities and schools in STEM education

Abstract

“SUZA - from school to science and the academic community” is the official popularization program for science, technology, engineering and mathematics at University of Zagreb, Faculty of electrical engineering and computing. Volunteers in the program are professors, researchers and students from the Faculty. Although, the program is relatively new, it counts more than 20 activities during a school year. Activities are mostly specialized for K-8 or K-12 students or for their teachers and are hosted at the Faculty, or in their schools. In this paper, we present several approaches showing how we popularize computer science - depending on their age and their previous knowledge. For K-8 students we organize visits to our faculty research groups and laboratories. Further, SUZA participates in Computer Science Education Week - Hour of Code event. For K-12 students we host a student fair in electrical engineering and computing educational sector and several specific mini workshops for them to gain hands-on experience. At the same time, we educate their teachers how to use robots for education in the schools. In this paper we present teacher workshops “When science is boring, who is it boring to?” and “Autonomous robotic systems and their role in modern society”.