LabSTEM – Strong Results and a Solid Foundation

The overall aim of LabSTEM+ was to contribute to higher quality teaching in mathematics and science in lower secondary education and in upper secondary and vocational education. This was achieved through a targeted effort to strengthen mathematics as a central and integrating subject within STEM education. LabSTEM+ has largely fulfilled its ambitions and leaves behind a strong academic, organizational, and didactic foundation that continues to live on in practice.

During the project period, 10 STEM laboratories were established across primary schools, upper secondary education, and vocational education, involving approximately 50 teachers. The laboratories functioned as development and learning spaces where teachers, in close collaboration with researchers, developed, tested, and refined interdisciplinary STEM teaching units with a particular focus on the role of mathematics.

The Laboratory Model

The work was based on the shared Laboratory Model that characterizes the LabSTEM initiative, which has proven to be sustainable, scalable, and easy to anchor locally.

All developed teaching units and accompanying materials from the laboratories are freely available here.

LabSTEM+ has also led to a significant enhancement of STEM teachers’ competencies across educational levels.

- The project has contributed to greater coherence in STEM education and to a more nuanced and practice-oriented understanding of how mathematics and science can interact across grade levels and types of education. This has had a positive impact on students’ motivation, participation, and experience of academic relevance, explains Associated Professor Dorte Moeskær Larsen, Head of FNUG and Project Manager of LabSTEM. The students' experiences in that context have been significant. 

The project has achieved substantial academic and research impact. LabSTEM has worked strategically to build a strong research foundation in STEM education, with a particular focus on mathematics. This includes the development of both senior and early-career researchers within the project group and the establishment of a nationally leading research role with institutional anchoring at the University of Southern Denmark.

Publications

Results have been widely disseminated through national and international conferences, seminars, and webinars, and the project forms the basis for a PhD dissertation as well as a large number of national and international publications. See the list of publications here.

Through collaborations with advisory boards, visiting researchers, and international partners—and in interaction with other LabSTEM initiatives—strong national and international networks have been established. These networks continue to support knowledge sharing and the further development of STEM education and STEM didactics.

Although LabSTEM+ has now concluded, LabSTEM as a whole remains a key reference point for STEM education in Denmark.

Development of STEM education continues

The experiences, laboratories, networks, and research-based didactic approaches constitute a solid foundation for the continued development of STEM education—with mathematics as a unifying core and with clear, documented impact in practice.