The International LUMA StarT Gala took place on the 6th of June 2019. The LUMA Centre Finland awards annually three internationally most distinguished science, technology and mathematics related projects by children and youngsters, and three teachers’ best educational practices at the StarT gala. This year the winners came from China, Jordan, Portugal and Finland. The Director of LUMA Centre Finland, Prof. Maija Aksela and the Chair of the Board of LUMA Centre Finland, Prof. Jan Lundell, handed awards at the gala. Read more about StarT here.
In the winning projects students created e.g. a flash flood alert system, researched the question “When do children feel healthy and happy?” and created a drone from a scratch to enhance its design and function. The winning best educational practices showed how to make use of childrens’ questions through an interdisciplinary approach and how to combine the teaching of statistics, ICT and languages into one project. When assessing the projects, the StarT jury has focused on innovativeness, interdisciplinarity, collaboration and creativity.
The International LUMA StarT Awards were awarded for the third time this year. The internationally awarded StarT programme has been organized by the LUMA Centre Finland, a network of Finnish science, technology and mathematics universities, since 2016. So far we have had participants from over 40 countries. In 2018-19, 900 learning communities, 2300 teachers and 25 600 children and youngsters have participated in the StarT programme. For the competition we received this year 640 projects and 250 best practices from 17 different countries.
“StarT projects are a terrific way to learn skills and abilities of the future world. To plan, to design, to achieve and to evaluate the outcome of a StarT project is a way to learn to tackle global challenges for a better and more prosperous world. It is the StarT of a curious mind needed to create clever solutions.”, Prof. Lundell, the Chair of the Board of LUMA Centre Finland commented.
The public’s most voted favourite projects and best practices and the most active country of StarT 2018-19 were also awarded at the StarT gala. In addition, the Finnish National StarT Awards were handed.
Winners of the International LUMA StarT Award 2019
Best projects by students, in alphabetical order:
- “Flash Flood Predictor”, students Omar Shishani, Omar Abu Salem and teacher Omar Shaheen. Zarqa University Schools and KG, Jordan
- “Health week project”, students Anele Ganusauskaite, Sofija Ganusauskaite, Simas Kudarauskas, Paulius Kvedaras, Izabele Trotaite, Arune Navickaite, Gerda Sezenytre, Saule Kasparaviciute, Dziugas Siautkulis, Jokubas Garlauskas, Elze Bartkeviciute, Liepa Morkunaite, Kostas Korsakovas, Akmeja Tilvikaite and teacher Rasa Jurgeleviciene. Šiaurės Licėjus, Lithuania
- “Reinventing the drone”, students Vilhelm Toivonen, Arimo Gustafsson, Niilo Viheriäranta, Aapo Leppänen and teachers Johanna Halme, Jari Latva-Teikari and Kaarina Ojasti. Tampereen lyseon lukio, Finland
Winners of the International LUMA StarT Education Award 2019
Best educational practices by teachers, in alphabetical order:
- “The Great Starry Sky”. Minyan Lu, Guifen Qian, Jie Chen, Jinxiang Liu, Xufeng Suna and Naihua Wei. Wanhong Primary School League, China
- “Grow your own food! Dare to try it (even on the moon)! – a 3rd and 4th grades approach to STEM”, Anabela Santos. EB1/JI de São Bartolomeu de Regatos, Portugal
- “Young people learning statistics”, Aira Karassaari and Hanna Littow. Keminmaan keskuskoulu, Finland
Public’s favourites
Public’s favourite project 2019:
- “ASPAR T-2”, students Talha Talip AÇIKGÖZ, Alperen KAHRAMAN and teachers Ertuğrul ÖZAR and Cüneyt AKYOL. Niğde Akşemseddin Bilim ve Sanat Merkezi, Turkey
Public’s favourite best practice 2019:
- “Theatre for science”, teachers Fouad El Haski, Hachim Mortaqi, Rachid Wahabi. GD-GSR (gestion déléguée du groupe scolaire la Résidence), Morocco
The most active country 2019
- The People’s Republic of China. The most active country out of the 20 countries participating in StarT was China with its highest number of participants in StarT 2018-19.
Additional information
- The comments of the StarT jury can be found here.
- The composition of the StarT jury 2019 can be found here
- Photos of the awarded teams for the media can be found here
- Photos from the gala can be found here
- Recording of the gala can be found here
- See the best of StarT 2018-19 here
- Read more about StarT here: https://start.luma.fi/en/
StarT 2019–2020: registration is open!
We want to thank everyone who participated in the gala and StarT 2018–2019, and we are already eagerly looking forward to seeing what kind of StarT projects you create next school year!
Register as a learning community for StarT 2019–2020 here! Read more about registering as a StarT learning community here and see our quick guide for teachers here.
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