The Schools Empowerment Event

New Project Logo to Grace Open Science Schooling Project

After some stiff competition during the Schools Empowerment Event of Erasmus+ Eco-Systems Open Science Schooling Project (OSS), the Romanian team came out tops, beating teams of students from other partner schools. The logo, with its visually and aesthetically pleasing elements, represents an embodiment of the project theme and aims and will grace the project throughout its 2-year stint. (View the article on the launch of the project here).

Romanian Team Wins Open Science Schooling Project Logo Competition

A total of 20 artistic and innovative logos were received from partner schools (Turkey, Lithuania, Romania and Poland) and voting for the most representative logo was tough. But the Romanian team’s logo took the prize because of its unique conceptualisation, which includes all the necessary elements that represent the project. When asked what she thought of the Project Logo Competition, Calkin Suero Montero, the knowledge expert from the University of Eastern Finland, said, “I was very pleased to see the good effort that all the student teams have put into conceptualising the essence of the project.” She added that the competition was carried out smoothly and fairly, and the outcome reflects the consortium’s synchronised spirit towards the project goal, well-represented by the winning logo.

Logo Entries Submitted by Participating Schools

Romanian Students Ecstatic Over Victory

The Romanian students were ecstatic and proud that their logo was chosen to represent the project. “A picture is worth a thousand words!” said the team, and they believe that the logo managed to embody all the essential elements related to the project – the partner countries, the community and the environment. It symbolises beauty and the idea of unity through science as a force that generates development. Students Alessia and Sarah said, “We felt so happy and proud that the Romanian logo won, as we had worked hard on this and our work has been rewarded”. Alessia regarded the flower as representing “us learning and growing together through science”, and another student, Alexandra, elaborated that its petals represent each flag of the countries collaborating in this project. Student Damaris said that they are pleasantly surprised that their logo will represent this project as there were many interesting logo ideas. He said, “This victory brought us a small advantage in this project and has improved the team’s mood. We thank the team and the project partners for all the support and encouragement provided so far.”

Romanian Team and Winning Logo

Light Bulb Originates from the First OSS Project Logo

The winning logo also includes a lightbulb with impressions of the world map, which is actually the original logo of the first OSS Project held from September 2017 to February 2020. It was the creation of School Pere Fontdevila associated with partner UPC, Catalonia, Spain. The aim of including the first logo into the second project logo is to show continuity and progression of the main mission of OSS, which is to encourage schools and the community to become real partners in school life and activities. In commenting about the lightbulb, student Alexandra said that it connects our planet with science, while student Mihai prefers to see it as representing collaboration and teamwork between schools in different countries in generating new ideas.

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The project is progressing well up to now with the student teams being given a workshop on video editing tools and how to document their science missions by Arash Mirhashemi from the University of Eastern Finland, who is in charge of the project’s student video output. The 3-day session also includes presentations of the OSS Resource Maps from the participating schools. The Resource Maps detail the schools’ science mission ideas and possible collaborations with their chosen community members or organisations. When asked about her opinion of the progress of the OSS project, Montero said, “I can say that the practice partners are working steadily towards completing their ecosystem resources maps. The empowering mobility was an excellent event to give the partners suitable feedback on their efforts and ideas related to this mapping process. The partner school teams have demonstrated a lot of creativity bringing several social actors to the fore to support their chosen missions and to co-create suitable opportunities and solutions to the benefit of their society.”

The Schools Empowerment Event which took place virtually on 3-5 February, 2021, was attended by teachers and students of all partner schools and facilitators from Wittenborg, the University of Eastern Finland (Itä-Suomen yliopisto) and Working with Europe (Treballant amb Europa Associació). Wittenborg was represented by its CEO, Maggie Feng, Dr Dadi Chen, Hanna Abdelwahab and Aydan Ismayilova. Ismayilova is Wittenborg’s new EU Project Coordinator and Junior Researcher, and she will be the coordinator of this whole project. Ismayilova said, “It’s a great opportunity to e-meet all our project partners, and I was impressed by the enthusiasm and readiness of schools, their involvement and contributions, especially the students. Despite the difficult times we are going through due to the pandemic, the team is very experienced in dealing with challenges and is very positive in its outlook. Our job going forward will be to create the perfect working environment for partners, so that the schools can focus on the main purpose of the project – building their eco-systems of OSS and carrying out their missions.”

By Hanna Abdelwahab

@WUAS Press