The Rey Juan Carlos University will lead the Erasmus + KA2 projectCooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices,KA201-Strategic Partnerships for school education, reference 020-1-ES01-KA201-082706, with a duration of 36 months, and an endowment of €401.355. It will collaborate in it with institutions (research center and educational center) from two countries Portugal (CEiiA Center of Engineering and Product Development; Scholé) and Greece (University of Western Macedonia; Anatolia Educational Group). He also collaborates with the Community of Madrid within the framework of its STEMadrid program, as well as the educational center of the Community of Madrid CEIPSO Maestro Rodrigo,in order to achieve an ambitious goal: the creation ofMiniOpenLabs, small laboratories open to the local community, in which children from 6 to 12 years old can carry out STEM projects.

Education for Sustainable Development and STEM Education are two main priorities for the EU. As climate change, overpopulation and inequalities begin to affect our planet and global human development, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) emerged as a response to change attitudes and behaviors and mobilize people around the Sustainability objective. On the other hand, education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is key to an increasingly complex society based on knowledge. Both Sustainable Development (SD) and STEM need to be addressed from a young age. It is in schools where children must begin to be trained and motivated in the study of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, to make them responsible, creative, innovative citizens who are aware of the world around them, that can help improve.

The project MiniOpenLabs proposes to use a different and motivating methodology, based on experimentation, to promote the interest of students between 6 and 12 years old in STEM subjects, as well as promote citizen science initiatives and increase vocations in science-based careers, employability and competitiveness. It will count on the cooperation between science and technology organizations, companies and civil society, to guarantee the pertinent and significant participation of all social actors with science, and contribute to the dissemination of knowledge and the responsibility of society in terms of of sustainability.

These objectives are expected to be achieved through the development of:

•      MiniOpenLabs: small laboratories, open to the local community, where children, under the guidance of teachers and the participation of the educational community (including parents), can implement STEM-based projects on sustainable development.

•      Activity Book: this Book will contain a set of STEM-based projects on sustainable development that can be carried out in the MiniOpenLabs.

•      Workshops: includes the creation of guidelines and the execution of different events with the aim of training teachers in the MiniOpenLabs approach and involving the local community in STEM education.

•      Dissemination and motivation activities in STEM subjects, in which the social, business and technological environment of the partners involved will participate.