Students of different ages attended on Saturday the first Moldovan-American school summit, called “Connect through Science”. The participants presented the most successful school initiatives from Chisinau and the US state of North Carolina, addressing climate change, urban sustainability and environment protection. The most successful projects implemented in Chisinau were awarded.
Daniela Munca-Aftenev, deputy head of Chisinau’s Directorate of Education, said that the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) initiatives are fascinating. Teams work together to find solutions to global problems. All the projects presented at the summit take a first step into the wonderful world of science.
Deputy Mayor Angela Cutasevici declared that the first Moldovan-American school summit will go down in history. “I am very glad that there is this opportunity to connect through science, but also with science, because you know how to solve global problems together with your peers, problems related to climate, sustainability, ecology, that is, of extreme importance. These are the same problems that are faced by the whole world, the entire globe”, the deputy mayor said, addressing the audience.
Diana Chișca, lecturer at the State Pedagogical University, member of the evaluation committee, noted that 27 participants applied in the competition with various STEM projects, carried out not only at the school team level, but also in cooperation with colleagues from other countries. The children demonstrated vast skills and knowledge, especially teamwork skills, even despite the great distances separating the partners. Many projects were completed over longer periods of time. The hard work put in was noticed, both the work of the participating students and the teachers who coordinated the projects. “We can be proud that in the Republic of Moldova we have children who can become researchers and scientists”, said the university lecturer
Each project was evaluated based on the criteria of inclusion in the STEM fields, impact, and to what extent the addressed issue was solved. STEM involves making a product that will be tangible and functional. It is something new for Moldova, but one can see how this field is developing.
Most projects focused on solving environmental problems, including in Chisinau. Solutions have been proposed to improve air quality, smart home applications. It is an enormous amount of work outside of school hours, in the students’ spare time. It takes much more than simply doing mathematics, computer science, it takes special programming, it takes other skills that students learn in all school subjects, said the participants in the event.
