StarT spring proceeds and the time has come to vote for your favourite videos! The StarT jury has made their decision as to which videos proceeded to the public voting, and you can now find the videos of the best practices and projects on the Youtube channel of StarT so go check out the amazing work groups from around the world have done and get inspired by project based learning! You can find direct links to each theme at the end of this post.

Your likes will be considered when the nominees for the best projects and practices of 2018 are chosen by the StarT jury, so voting really pays off! The winners of the public voting will also be awarded with a diploma in the international StarT gala. The international StarT gala is the grand final of both the national and international StarT every year, and this year it will take place in Tampere on the 5th of June 2018 as a part of the national LUMA days. Read more about last year’s gala here and find more about this year’s gala here.

Why StarT?

In 2016, the LUMA Centre Finland with their collaborators started a new education model called StarT. The purpose of StarT it to support the implementation of inter-disciplinary approach and cross-curricular studies in schools in accordance with the new national curriculum of Finland. The StarT model is aimed to be implemented in all learning communities from early childhood to upper secondary education.

StarT is exceptional as everyone learns together as a learning community by carrying out phenomenon-based and cross-curricular projects. The main goal of StarT is to strengthen the excitement and interest of children and youngsters towards studying mathematics, natural sciences and technology.

The long-term goal of StarT is to establish the collaborative and inspiring StarT model into the annual activities of schools and other learning communities. The Star teams consisting of children and youngsters from kindergartens, schools, extracurricular groups and homes share the joy of learning in the national and international StarT community, which consisted of nearly 800 learning communities from 36 different countries in 2016-2017.

After the public voting

The voting continues until the 8th of April, so make sure to like your favourite videos before that! Don’t forget to invite your friends and family along to share the inspiring work you have done! The nominees for the best projects and practices of 2018 will be announced on the 16th of April. The StarT jury will decide ten nominees for the best projects and ten nominees for the best practices. Of these twenty nominees, the honorary StarT jury will decide which three groups win the International LUMA StarT Education Award (for best practices) and which three groups the International LUMA StarT Award (for the best projects). You can read more about the assessment criteria here.