(gentle electronic music)
Male speaker: Every year since 2012,
a local Swedish electricity company, Kraftringen,
organizes a regional contest called Spännings-Sökarna,
which would literally translate
as thrill seekers or tension seekers, if you prefer.
Female speaker: Together with Vattenhallen Science Center
in Lund, in Sweden,
and other private and public partners,
they encourage 15 year old students
to collaboratively come up with creative solutions
for a carbon-neutral future.
Male speaker: While developing the creativity
of the students involved,
the organizers of this contest contribute
to what we would define as, transformative education.
Female speaker: Because they encourage
the participating students
to come up with innovative solutions
concerning the environment and energy use,
and through a process of different rounds of elimination,
they let the classes with the best ideas
present their entries in front of a jury
who will select a winning project.
Male speaker: The very fact that so many aspects
of the teaching can be included in one and the same project,
make the students more involved.
Female speaker: Competitions such as this one,
can be seen as a fun, inspiring
and challenging compliment to regular teaching.
Male speaker: It goes without saying
that Kraftringen and their contest Spännings-Sökarna,
has been a great source of inspiration in many aspects
for the innovative and sustainable active learning methods
discussed throughout the book.
Female speaker: The students learn presentation
and argumentation techniques.
Male speaker: And the competition element
creates commitment and social cohesion
in the participating classes.
Female speaker: In group projects like these
team building becomes a core element.
It's an opportune incentive to teach the life lesson
that a team is only ever as good as its weakest player.
Male speaker: It lifts everyone up
despite their initial levels of abilities.
(upbeat instrumental music)
The collective efforts of students
with a wide range of interests and credentials,
highlights a multitude of complimentary creativities
among the group.
Female speaker: In other words,
everyone finds their place and contributes to a common goal.
Male speaker: The whole process provides
a favorable circumstance for any teacher
to perform continuous assessment
throughout the different phases of the project.
And the teacher will be able
to evaluate the student's progress,
which is in our opinion the only true measure of success.
Indeed, regardless of the outcome of any contest,
the real victory is the wider lessons learned
throughout the project.
Female speaker: Being able to work as a team,
with a project for a long period, with a common goal,
creates a good basis for a continued interest
in the subject and builds the group's cohesion.
Male speaker: It also contributes to the development
of the relational pedagogy described in previous chapters.
Female speaker: We have seen students
who have gained a significantly positive attitude
towards school in general.
And we noticed an increased interest
in technology as a school subject,
thanks to taking part in competitions.
Male speaker: This experience becomes a lifelong lesson
and one which many students report coming back to
and remembering for many years after the event.
Female speaker: One important aspect of each presentation
is also that the students will build models, replicas,
or prototypes of their projects.
Male speaker: This practical and hands-on approach
allows students to conceptualize their ideas.
It brings in the element of art and design into the process,
and it also allows the participants to
encounter the practical problems of physical construction
that engineers would come up against in real life design
and manufacture.
Female speaker: Every year,
the students are encouraged to build their models
out of recycled materials.
This aspect became an essential part
of the efforts to raise consciousness
about the overall environmental theme
covered in the contest.
Male speaker: Students sometimes also make animated films
or short video presentations,
with computer-generated animations or sketches
to illustrate how their creative solutions might work.
Female speaker: Throughout the years,
some classes have made live
or pre-recorded music performances
for the beginnings of their presentations.
Male speaker: Writing songs or making covers
of existing songs with new lyrics,
acts as a nice breaker for their class presentations.
Female speaker: Their lyrics are often a mix
of Swedish and English,
describing the general idea of their projects
and the styles of music ranges from hip hop to rock or pop.
Male speaker: These intro songs
are sometimes accompanied by music video,
where the students get the chance to learn more
about music and video editing and production.
This aspect brings about the occasion
to highlight all connections between art and technology
as an integral part of STEAM education.
Female speaker: The different themes
the students are asked to explore every year,
cover a wide range of school topics,
which provide the opportunity for the teachers
in charge to really apply the transdisciplinary
and holistic integrative method,
so thoroughly described in this book.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Male speaker: Even though we are here discussing
a very particular competition,
you, if you're a teacher,
would most likely be able to find a similar competition
in your own area or country.
Female speaker: Many different sorts of competitions
might bring the kind of benefits to your teaching
and to your students,
but we do suggest that those that have some kind
of real life implications
embedded in the competition framework
might bring the most benefit to your learning outcomes.
Male speaker: This way, your students will feel
that they are working on solutions to real problems
and that they are part of a wider community of inventors
and problem solvers.
Female speaker: If you find
that there are no such competitions available
for you to enter your students into in your area,
we would encourage you to get in touch
with the local business community,
and encourage any private enterprises
to become engaged in their community
by creating similar projects and competitions
for their local youth.
Male speaker: We suggest that they will find this
an excellent way to build bridges
between the business community and local schools,
and by extension, the local youth.
Female speaker: This weight,
creating a Petri dish of revolutionary ideas
coming from the most creative minds in society,
the youth, who still have the ability
to think outside the box.
Male speaker: But it is also
to the advantage of the business community
in creating yearly events and contests like these,
because it might inspire a generation
of young boys and girls to contemplate a career
in the industry or even, in that particular company if,
they build a positive image of these companies
as investors in the future, through innovation.
Female speaker: The participants
must answer certain questions or specifications
regarding queries, such as,
"What might future energy solutions look like?".
Students are encouraged to come up
with new ways to use renewable energy sources,
and new ways of living as energy-efficiently as possible.
Male speaker: Indeed, during the years
that our students have taken part
in this type of entrepreneurial learning,
we have observed how certain subjects and knowledge,
most notably technology and natural sciences,
have risen in importance for the students,
in particular, among girls.
This might be brought forward as a very attractive,
yet achievable teaching goal.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Female speaker: Even though the themes
always vary slightly from year to year,
the purpose of this competition
is to increase the participating students' knowledge
about energy production, about distribution,
storage, energy consumption,
and about the environmental and social impact
of this essential industrial branch.
Male speaker: The sustainable
and integrative aspect of project like these,
are not limited to the necessary teachers' collaboration
on a common transdisciplinary planning.
Female speaker: It becomes an active learning experience
for the students,
where they assimilate new competencies
while working holistically.
They see more and more connections
between the different interdisciplinary aspects of school
as their project creates
a genuine transdisciplinary learning experience.
Male speaker: In this competition,
every year, a grand jury awards a first prize,
which is a three day class trip to Berlin or London.
Or during the COVID 19 pandemic,
a 100,000 Swedish Corona cash prize.
Female speaker: Often the class presenting,
include an element of surprise in their presentation,
to show that they have thought
about possible counter-arguments,
which indicates that they have problem-solving skills.
The grand jury always asks the presenting students questions
after each presentation.
Male speaker: And the students are also judged
on the quality of their answers.
This plays an important role in the jury's decision,
when a winning class is chosen.
Female speaker: The winning classes
have had the privilege to visit the self-sufficient village
of Feldheim in Germany,
the Science Museum in London,
and many other educational destinations.
Together with their partners,
Kraftringen reports that they want to lead the development
of a sustainable society for future generations.
Male speaker: If the natural resources
are to be sufficient for everyone in the future,
the next generations must find new energy solutions
and be much smarter consumers.
Female speaker: The contest is divided into six phases.
Male speaker: The first one is registration.
Female speaker: Teachers register the classes
and the students automatically have links
to some unique digital educational material,
that has been developed to help students learn more
about sustainable energy.
The second phase is the workshop.
Male speaker: The classes visit
their local science center,
to spend half a day there,
on a morning or on an afternoon.
But during the COVID 19 pandemic,
the science center sent a big box
filled with different, exciting experiments
and even an escape room to inspire the students
before starting to brainstorm for ideas.
Female speaker: The third phase is the online voting.
Male speaker: During this phase,
every single entry is presented
and people are invited to vote for their favorite one.
The top 10, goes to the next phase, the Energy Council.
Female speaker: The jury from the council
assesses the entries based on the following criteria:
Function and use,
Male speaker: social and environmental values.
Female speaker: Target group, who is the idea aimed at?
Male speaker: Innovation and creativity.
Fair distribution of the classes
among the municipalities served
by the energy company, Kraftringen.
Female speaker: Phase five is presentation preparations.
This phase is one of the most important,
in regard of our
sustainable holistic active learning philosophy.
The finalist classes have a few weeks to develop
and fine tune their projects.
They need to practice their live presentations
for the finals.
The class also receives a special lecture
in presentation technique,
from two professional presentation coaches,
provided for by the competition organizers,
to help the finalists feel prepared
for the grand finale.
Phase six is the grand finale.
Male speaker: The web-televised live show
takes place at the largest venue
in the town of Lund in Sweden, the Sparbanken Skåne Arena,
Female speaker: where our finalists meet up
to compete for the first prize.
Kraftringen's competition, Spännings-Sökarna,
is not an isolated project in technology or in physics,
but it's a transdisciplinary project for all subjects.
Male speaker: Contests like these,
provide the opportunity
and meet the educational requirements
that give students the opportunity to learn holistically.
Female speaker: We need to believe
in the young people of today
and therefore we want to let them be involved
in creating energy solutions relevant for the future.
(upbeat instrumental music)