From STEM to STEAM: Integrating Art into STEM Education

Name: From STEM to STEAM: Integrating Art into STEM Education
Price: 400 EUR

Why this is Erasmus+ eligible

Structured, multi-day programme (5 days) with a pre-defined schedule and learning outcomes — not a passive lecture format.

Built around interaction: participants engage directly with the trainer and with peers from other countries throughout the course.

Transnational by design — open to participants travelling from outside the host country, a core requirement of Erasmus+ mobility funding.

Aligned with the Erasmus+ horizontal priority: Digital Transformation.

The Erasmus+ Programme Guide names digital transformation as a horizontal priority, stating that "the Erasmus+ programme plays a key role in supporting citizens of all ages in acquiring the digital skills and competences they need to live, learn, work, exercise their rights, be informed, access online services, communicate, critically consume, create and disseminate digital education content" (Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Part A – Priorities of the Erasmus Programme).

Source: Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Key Action 1 — School Education Mobility.

Overview

An MP3 player, John Maeda once pointed out, was pure STEM technology from the day it launched — chips, code, engineering, nothing more. “But until Apple came along, it didn’t become desirable.” That gap is the whole argument for the A in STEAM. Maeda led the STEM-to-STEAM movement while president of the Rhode Island School of Design, and he put the reason plainly: STEM on its own “doesn’t create warmth and humanity and connection.”

Agreeing with that is easy. Teaching it on a Tuesday morning is not, and this is where most STEAM courses stop — at the argument, without a sequence. So the week runs on one. The BSCS 5E Instructional Model was developed by Biological Sciences Curriculum Study in the late 1980s, and it is still one of the most widely used instructional sequences in science teaching. Engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate — one phase per day. Participants work through each phase as learners first, then write that phase of their own unit before the day ends.

Two rules come from the model’s own authors, and both are commonly broken. A phase is not optional and the order is not negotiable — the research behind the sequence found reduced effectiveness when phases were dropped or moved. And it was never meant for a single lesson. Rodger Bybee, who led the team that built it, puts its working scale at a unit of two to three weeks. What participants design here is a unit, not a one-off activity.

The art is not an extra day. Each phase has a place where making something is how the thinking gets done: an object or image that creates the puzzle in the engage phase, an archive to investigate in the explore phase, a built explanation instead of a written one in the explain phase, a prototype in the elaborate phase. Three tools carry that work — Google Arts & Culture as an archive, Scratch for explanations that move, Tinkercad for things that have to be modelled in three dimensions. Each one sits in the phase it actually serves rather than in a “digital tools” day of its own.

Schools are not equally equipped, so every phase is designed twice. Participants say on the first morning what their classroom really has, and build within it: the tool route if there are devices, the physical route if there are not. The physical route is not a lesser version. The 2024 systematic review of 5E research describes the explore phase as running through hands-on investigation “usually but not prescriptively”, and a paper model, a storyboard or a scale drawing does the same work as its on-screen equivalent. No one finishes the week with a unit their own school cannot run.

The last day takes on the question art integration actually fails on: how do you mark a Scratch animation or a 3D model for what the student understood, rather than for how good it looks? Participants write the criteria, then try to apply a colleague’s criteria to a colleague’s artefact — which is usually where a rubric turns out to be measuring polish.

Methodology

Live the phase before you design it

Each day opens with participants working through that day's 5E phase as learners, so the sequence is experienced before it is planned.

Your own curriculum topic, all week

Every participant works on one topic they actually teach, brought from home, rather than a demonstration example — the unit that leaves with them is for a real class.

Two routes, declared on day one

Every phase is designed both with and without devices. Participants state what their classroom genuinely has and build within it, so the finished unit is one their own school can run.

The tool sits in the phase it serves

Google Arts & Culture for investigation, Scratch for explanation, Tinkercad for prototyping — introduced where the unit needs them rather than in a separate technology session.

Marked by a colleague, not by the trainer

Assessment criteria written during the week are tested by applying them to someone else's artefact, which is where a rubric that rewards polish over understanding shows itself.

What you'll take home

Sequence a STEAM unit through all five phases of the BSCS 5E model, in the order the model specifies.

Place an artistic or design task inside a phase because it does the thinking there, not as decoration at the end.

Build the same phase two ways — with digital tools and with physical materials — and choose on the basis of what your school actually has.

Use Google Arts & Culture, Scratch and Tinkercad for the specific jobs they are good at, rather than as a general "technology" add-on.

Write assessment criteria that judge what a made artefact shows about understanding, not how finished it looks.

Leave with a two-to-three-week STEAM unit outline for a topic you teach, with one phase written out in full and its artefact brief attached.

Daily programme

Warm-up: an object is passed round with no explanation — participants meet the group by arguing about what it is for, which is the engage phase happening to them
Maeda's argument in his own words, and what it does and does not claim: art as the thing that makes STEM matter to people, not as a way to make lessons prettier
The BSCS 5E model end to end: what each phase is for, why the order is fixed, why phases are not optional
Why engage is the shortest phase and why it is not a pre-test — Bybee's own caution, and what teachers do instead
Declaring your route: each participant states what their classroom actually has, and fixes the topic and driving question their unit will run on
Build: write the engage phase for your own topic, including the object, image or sound that opens it

Warm-up in new pairs: two minutes each to describe something in your own subject that a photograph could not explain, then pairs merge into fours and pick the hardest one — regrouping the room before the day's investigation
Warm-up: one painting, no caption — what can be established from evidence alone, and what is only a guess
What makes an activity an investigation rather than a demonstration, and how to tell the two apart in your own plans
Google Arts & Culture as a source of primary material: high-resolution artefacts examined for the science, engineering or mathematics inside them
The physical route, run in parallel: the same investigation with printed images, objects and measurement by hand
Build: write the explore phase, with the evidence students will collect and the form they will record it in

Warm-up: explain a process using only movement or drawing, no words — then compare what survived
The explain phase is student-led first: how to hold back the vocabulary until students need it
Scratch as an explanation tool: an animation that has to be sequenced correctly to work, which makes a wrong model visible
The physical route: a comic strip, a flip-book or a demonstrated sequence doing the same job
Choosing the form: what a diagram, an animation, a model or a narration each reveals and each hides about student understanding
Build: write the explain phase and decide the artefact your students will produce

Warm-up: the same concept in a completely new situation — how far can it travel before it breaks
What makes an elaboration challenging but achievable, and why this is the phase most often cut for time
Tinkercad for prototyping: modelling a solution in three dimensions when the constraint is real and the design has to answer it
The physical route: card, paper and scale drawing under the same constraints
The second teacher: which colleague your unit genuinely needs, and what you would ask them for
Build: write the elaborate phase and the cross-subject connection your unit rests on

Warm-up: two student artefacts, one beautiful and one crude — participants try to agree which shows more understanding
Writing criteria a student can read and use, separating the science claim from the craft
Cross-marking in fours: each participant applies a colleague's criteria to a colleague's artefact, then the four compare where the criteria failed them
Two cases brought to the whole group, chosen for what they expose rather than for how well they went
Revision: each participant rewrites their own criteria against what cross-marking exposed, and completes the unit outline
Course evaluation, certificates and course documents

Please note: sessions run from 09:30 to 15:00, Monday to Friday, with a break for lunch. Timings can shift a little to suit the venue and the group. If you'd like a specific topic covered, let us know when you apply — the confirmed day-by-day schedule is sent to registered participants ahead of the course.

Certificate: we issue the Certificate of Attendance to everyone who's present for at least 80% of the course — tracked with the daily sign-in sheet (see Certificate & assessment).

Equipment: a few of our courses ask participants to bring a laptop — check the day-by-day programme above, or ask us if you're not sure.

Need a formal invoice or proforma for your school's records? Ask us — we issue official invoices with the participant's name and course details.

Materials & tools

The BSCS 5E Instructional Model: Origins and Effectiveness (Bybee et al., 2006, BSCS) — the phase descriptions and the research behind the sequence, worked through during the week.

Rodger Bybee's own reflections on the model, including his cautions on phase order and working scale.

John Maeda's STEM-to-STEAM interview, read in full on Day 1 rather than quoted second-hand.

A blank five-phase unit template with a parallel column for the physical route, filled in day by day and taken home completed.

Google Arts & Culture, used as an archive of high-resolution primary material during the explore phase.

Scratch, used to build explanations that have to run in the right order to work.

Tinkercad, used to model solutions in three dimensions during the elaborate phase.

Certificate & assessment

This is a Certificate of Attendance, not an exam-based qualification — recognition comes from completing the structured programme, not from passing a test. The real, lasting value is in the competencies listed above under What you'll take home.

Erasmus Mobility Academy

Certificate of Attendance

From STEM to STEAM: Integrating Art into STEM Education · 5 days · 25 hrs

+ Europass Mobility document

Type your name above — clearly marked "SAMPLE" in the PDF, not an official document.

The real certificate is signed by your trainer and EMA's authorised signatory. Your own signature isn't on this document — it's captured separately, on the Europass Mobility document.

Need to verify a real certificate? Check it online using the serial number and participant's full name, or contact us directly — [email protected], OID E10304561.

Attendance

Tracked using a sign-in sheet with one signature per participant per day (paper or digital). This record is used to issue your Certificate of Attendance and Europass Mobility document. View sign-in sheet (PDF)

Output

Every participant leaves with a completed Dissemination & School Impact Plan — a step-by-step template for applying the course back at your school (see below).

Feedback

An end-of-course evaluation form is sent to every participant after the course ends — a chance to reflect on what you've learned and how you'll apply it, and it helps us keep improving the course for future participants.

Your paperwork

Keep your travel tickets, boarding passes and (if you used green travel) any related receipts — your school or National Agency may ask for these for their own Erasmus+ reporting.

How to prepare

Bring one topic you actually teach — the unit you build during the week will be for that topic and that class.

Bring the curriculum or syllabus text for it; a photo or printout of the relevant page is enough.

Know what your classroom really has: how many devices, whether students can log in, and what physical materials you can get hold of. The week is designed around your answer, so an honest one is more useful than an optimistic one.

Bring a laptop if you can. Scratch and Google Arts & Culture run in the browser with no account needed; Tinkercad asks for a free account, so creating one before you travel saves time on Day 4.

Nothing needs to be bought or installed beyond that.

Practical information

Registration & documents

Not sure how registering works or what paperwork is involved? See our full Registration & Documents guide — from applying to your Certificate of Attendance, in one place.

Invitation letter

Need a formal invitation letter for your school or embassy? Request one — we send it within 2 business days. See a sample (PDF).

Learning Agreement

Prepared by our staff and sent to you and your school once your registration form is submitted — see what it looks like. See a sample (PDF).

Billing & invoicing

We issue official invoices/proformas with the participant's name and course details — ask us. Payment is due in full by bank transfer before the course start date. See a sample (PDF).

Airport transfer

Guidance on getting from the nearest airport to the venue is included in your welcome information.

Accommodation

We can recommend partner hotels close to the venue in the host city — ask us when you apply.

For your school / proposal

School impact

After completing this Digital & Innovative Education course, the participating staff member can transfer outcomes directly to their school: a short briefing for colleagues sharing the key takeaways, applying relevant tools or strategies from the programme in their own role, and inclusion of the course materials in the school's professional development resources — turning one person's mobility into a wider institutional gain that supports the school's European Development Plan. Use the Dissemination & School Impact Plan below to fill in your own — it saves as you go and can generate a one-page summary for your coordinator too.

Prefer a blank, course-independent version of this template? Get it here →

After the course

Participants will receive their certificates (Certificate of Attendance + Europass).

Participants will complete a general course evaluation and event survey.

Participants will receive course materials, videos, photos, and PDF documents in both digital and print formats.

Follow-up support: an email group is created for idea exchange, self-evaluation materials are provided, and participants receive a follow-up check-in after 3 months — by which point the unit built during the week should have been taught once, so the check-in looks at what students actually produced and how the criteria held up.

Frequently asked

This course is an eligible training activity under Erasmus+ Key Action 1 (School Education Mobility) — the course fee, travel and subsistence fall within the eligible cost categories. Whether it is covered depends on your own project's approved grant agreement and your National Agency's rules; we provide all the invoices, attendance records and certificates your National Agency requires for reporting.

B1 is enough — you do not need to be fluent. Trainers speak slowly and plainly, every session is built around doing something rather than sitting and listening, and groups are mixed by nationality so people help each other out. A rough test: if you could follow a staff meeting held in English and ask a question in it, you will be fine here.

Absolutely — group bookings of 3+ from one school receive priority placement, and we can schedule a dedicated session for groups of 12 or more.

Our courses run on request at our centres in Antalya, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin, Budapest, Bremen and Rome. Tell us your preferred city and dates and we will arrange a session.

Tuition, all course materials, both certificates (attendance + Europass Mobility) and a half-day guided tour of the host city with a local guide. Flights, accommodation and travel insurance are booked separately — we send a vetted hotel list.

You can move to any later session free of charge. Cancellations made 30+ days before the start date receive a full refund; a reduced refund applies closer to the date — see our full Cancellation & Refund Policy for the exact schedule.

The Erasmus+ Programme Guide names digital transformation as a horizontal priority, stating that "the Erasmus+ programme plays a key role in supporting citizens of all ages in acquiring the digital skills and competences they need to live, learn, work, exercise their rights, be informed, access online services, communicate, critically consume, create and disseminate digital education content" (Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Part A – Priorities of the Erasmus Programme). Frame it in your own project's terms — your National Agency's current call will confirm exactly how it applies.

Neither. The course is built for teachers from both sides — STEM teachers with no art training, and art or humanities teachers with no STEM background. Google Arts & Culture, Scratch and Tinkercad are all introduced from first principles, and no participant is asked to produce work of artistic quality; the artefacts exist to show understanding.

Yes, and it is planned for rather than worked around. Every phase is designed twice during the week, once with the digital tools and once with paper, card and physical materials, and you choose your route on the first morning. The unit you take home is the one your own classroom can actually run.