Stem4Agri

Stem4Agri – At a Glance

The main objective of this 2-year project is to encourage the development of innovative digital education practices to assist VET (Vocational Education and Training) trainers, trainees and farmers to get acquainted with the new cutting- edge technologies and become more successful and effective in their future professional careers. In addition to that, various flavours of digital technologies are combined in order to assist all the trainees to reinforce an attitude of preserving resources and reducing the pollution footprint of the diverse agricultural activities. Another objective is to introduce methods guaranteeing improved opportunities for the less favoured people, like elderly or disabled persons, and women, in order to have an active role in the real-world agricultural processes that were traditionally “too harsh” for them. Furthermore, important priority is to open the prospects for new job creation by highlighting the need for new professions, targeted at transforming the agricultural sector through digital technologies. Finally efforts will be made in order to provide a good mixture of in-vivo and in-vitro educational practices that will be able to withstand and be adopted to the constraints caused by sudden crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, or by factors such as distance or gender. The activities for achieving the above goals will include: – Adapting via pilot examples the necessary conventional and mainly cutting-edge agricultural technologies paradigm from the Agricultural University curriculum to the VET curriculum. – Training VET trainers in the context of focusing on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) actions and artifacts that are directly related with environmental and agricultural processes. – Training VET trainees in the context of focusing on STEM actions and artifacts that are directly related with environmental and agricultural processes. – Verifying the skills acquired by all the trainees by encouraging their engagement in pilot actions including visiting groups of farmers for assisting them via innovative practices and organizing/participating in conferences and exhibitions.

Project Partners

1. Aigaleo Public Institute of Vocational Training (DIEK Aigaleo)
2. Agricultural University of Athens
3. Global Food World Holding LTD

Expected results

Participating trainees will be benefited from various STEM themes combining creativity, innovation, and constructiveness that can lead to a promising career. As they work on their interdisciplinary projects, they will have the opportunity to develop digital skills, explore scientific concepts, be familiar with the digitization of food & beverages sector and apply Digital and Sustainable agricultural practices. The project also provides trainers with professional development skills on STEM field.