Photo: Representatives of the UM and Maltese schools participating in the International MOST fair
This August the Horizon 2020 project MOST (Meaningful Open Schooling Connects Schools to Communities) comes to an end. The project explored open schooling by establishing partnerships between schools and communities across Europe to support students and citizens in Europe to develop scientific knowledge and interest in science. The MOST approach involved initiating school-community projects in ten European countries where students and their teachers worked together with citizens on projects tackling an environmental issue relevant to their community.
The participants shared their expertise to the problem-solving process. In Malta the project was implemented through the EkoSkola network and groups of students were engaged in inspiring projects focusing on topics that ranged from nesting of turtles to reducing food waste, from audits of government buildings to work on tree inventories and carbon sequestration among others. The students shared their findings via several fora such as social media and fairs reaching thousands of members of the community. Two Maltese schools, Stella Maris College and St Dorothy Senior School, presented their school community projects in the International MOST fair held in the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands. A big well done to all the schools who participated in these school-community projects. They are an inspiration to us all.
