"The STEAM Snake": Ukraine's National Science on Stage festival kicks off

Ukraine's National Science on Stage Festival will happen in five different locations this year. This is Nataliya Kazachkova's report on the first event on March 21st and its impressive impact:

Only a bit more than 5 months have passed since the delegates from Ukraine had presented their projects at the European Science on Stage Festival in Turku, sharing ideas with the widest community of STEM education: Science on Stage Europe. That impressive event became an important step in the developing of the STEAM approach in the complicated political situation which is now in lots of Ukrainian cities. Unfortunately, there are still lots of "window-dressing" educational events which don’t give useful information and valuable practical tools to improve their teaching skills to the real STEAM teachers. The war was the main reason for organising travelling jury sessions in different Ukrainian cities, all places where former SonS Festival participants live and teach.

The first stop of the festival was organised on 21st of March 2025 on the premises of Poltava National Pedagogical University. 25 projects were presented. There were lots of teachers (visitors from nearby schools). Useful innovations and valuable practical ideas were the characteristics of the festival according to visitors. The main goal was to involve and engage students (future teachers) in the activities and share ideas of how to prepare successful STEM projects. We were very glad that the university and previous SonS participants had formed an experienced jury led by David Featonby, an outstanding and bright Physics teacher from the UK.

Four projects were chosen during four events in Poltava. There were also some projects from students and STEM teachers of the Poltava region. We are sure it was a good chance to select some of them to the next European Festival in Klaipeda. Since then, information about the activities of the Science on Stage community has been spreading fast all over the country. According to the participants’ vivid recollections, the SonS Festival overhelmed them with new ideas, useful contacts and new friends. More than 310 visitors (teachers from 27 Ukrainian cities) attended the Festival, watched the festival videos with Ukrainian translation and had the opportunity to watch the Festival Posters, hands-on experiments, best projects, and European teaching materials. They were impressed by the motto “From teachers for teachers” and realised how important that event had been.

And, of course, the highlight of the Festival was the performance of the famous Ukrainian Folk Choir “Kalyna” after the announcement of the winners and the Award Ceremony where all participants received certificates and presents. It was magnificent that our heroic teachers have found the strength to work creatively in spite of the permanent military actions in Ukraine. 

The next events will take place in Kyiv, Lviv and Zhitomyr. The final session of the National Festival will be hosted in the safe space of Karazin Kharkiv National University in Kharkiv.