GOSTEAM is a three-year duration (2020-2023) KA2 Strategic Partnership in the field of school education, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. It involves two higher education institutions; Lund University and National Technical University of Athens, three secondary education schools in Austria (BG/BRG Schwechat), Greece (Ellinogermaniki Agogi), and Sweden (Ystad Gymnasium), and a Science Centre in Italy (Fondazione Idis – Città della Scienza).
The GOSTEAM Partnership aims to develop educational hands-on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) activities in the fields of Geographic Information Science and Technology, Cartography and Environmental Science for shaping the next generation of geospatially and environmentally aware citizens.
Geospatial thinking is a blending of knowledge and skills which supports people in identifying and interpreting location, distance, relationships, orientation, movement, change, patterns, and trends in geoenvironmental space. As a cross-cutting ability for STEAM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics), social sciences and humanities, as well as for several tasks of daily life, geospatial thinking can be cultivated, with substantial benefits for young people.
In the era of “digital natives”, open linked data, digital earth, ubiquitous mapping, citizen science, location-based services and geospatial intelligence, a new civil society of Spatial Citizens is emerging, with the perception, consciousness, and ability to understand, map, communicate and design their world.
GOSTEAM addresses teachers/educational staff, as well as secondary education students, cultivating students’ cognitive abilities and skills, such as problem-solving and critical thinking, in the interdisciplinary context of environmental literacy and global awareness.
