The “Maker” movement is a cultural as well as educational phenomenon that has the potential to offer significant opportunities to students in conditions of social, economic and cultural disadvantage. The research reported in this paper, however, suggests that the simple provision of “Maker Spaces” for such activity is simplistic and not sufficient to realise this potential. The research involved a mixed methods study of a cohort of year 7 students (n = 26) in an Australian school located in a socio-economically disadvantaged outer-metropolitan region. The cohort undertook a range of Maker activities at a new “creativity centre” built at the school. Results indicate that the activities had positive impact on student attitudes towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) overall, but that the impact was highly specific across attitudinal constructs. A strong ranging effect was also evident, suggesting that the impact of the experience was highly dependent on students’ initial attitudes. Reflecting on these results, the paper also offers a reference framework that may help keep equity in mind when designing different kinds of Maker experience.

Today’s adolescents represent an elective target in addressing environmental challenges. Education is a key factor in achieving a sustainable future for them. However, formal education can represent a challenge when youths are its target, as they are considered the “interactive generation”. Game-based learning, and, in particular, Digital Educational Escape Rooms (DERs), have emerged as innovative methods in education, with promising applications in environmental sustainability studies. In this study, we developed 14 Digital Escape Rooms using the Social Cognitive Theory of Bandura as a theoretical framework. These were focused on environmental education and we tested them on a sample of 411 students (aged 12–18 years; 158 female, 38.4%). A one-group quasi-experimental research design was adopted, carrying out a pre-test post-test analysis. Each participant completed assessments at two time points: before engaging in the escape rooms (T0) and after (T1). The assessment tools included the Goal Assessment Scale (GAS) and the Perceived Climate Self-Efficacy Scale. Our findings revealed no significant gender differences in goal achievement. However, at T0, females exhibited higher levels of perceived climate self-efficacy in both individual and collective dimensions. Instead, the Digital Escape Rooms appeared particularly effective in increasing self-efficacy among male participants. These results suggest that Digital Escape Rooms hold potential for enhancing environmental self-efficacy, although gender differences in baseline efficacy levels warrant further exploration.

Artificial intelligence is affecting every aspect of our lives and especially the lives of children, as they are developing relationships with technology which are more complex and different than the relationships of those who came before them. Integrating AI into education has the potential to entail a number of pitfalls and ethical challenges that need to be addressed. Moreover, relationships with AI will be crucial in a future in which students, as active citizens, will play a pivotal role in defining the effects and implications of AI. It is thus important to educate both teachers and students in the use of AI, making them aware of its risks and potentialities as well as of the controversial effects of human–AI complementarity. Starting from a review of the most relevant studies on this topic, this chapter aims to define a framework to inspire curricular design, the adoption of suitable teaching and learning approaches and the development of the necessary skills, attitudes, and mindsets for children to thrive with artificial intelligence. Such a curriculum would nurture attitudes such as knowledge-rich creativity, problematisation, and critical thinking and judging. Throughout the definition of this framework, we advocate for more pedagogically founded principles for designing curricula and promoting teaching and learning activities dealing with AI, as opposed to the proliferation of curricula with a technocentric vision. <!----> <!----> <!----> <!---->

During pre-service teacher and educator training it is essential that future teachers and educators learn how to design a learning module or a curriculum and that they master an approach of learning design, considering also inclusion and equity issues to increase participation and learning of all the students, embracing their diversities and addressing their different needs. The aim of this study is to describe an encompassing approach of learning design infused of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) that was developed and adopted within a Faculty’s Laboratory on educational technology targeted at future primary school teachers and within a Course on Maker Education for the future educators of the Degree Course in Education. This Framework is the result of the experimentation of various previous versions of it during the last two academic years and appears to promote the creation of accessible, engaging and inclusive maker education projects that meet the needs of each learner.

Climate change education increasingly calls for experiential and participatory approaches capable of engaging students cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally. This study examined REWIND, a three-hour itinerant urban role-playing intervention on climate change and sustainable resource use, using matched pre-test/post-test data from 153 upper-secondary students in Italy. Outcomes comprised psychological well-being, pro-environmental behaviors, low- and high-threshold environmental activism, and educational orientations; experience-specific enjoyment was necessarily assessed after participation. Students from technical/professional schools increased in pro-environmental behaviors and low-threshold activism, whereas changes were not generalized across outcomes or school tracks. Male students, who began with lower low-threshold activism, improved significantly; however, their post-test scores did not differ from female students in either unadjusted or baseline- and track-adjusted comparisons. A baseline-adjusted multivariate model showed no overall post-test differences by gender or school track. The overall adjusted association of enjoyment with the four continuous outcomes was borderline, whereas enjoyment-by-school-track interactions were significant and were driven mainly by low-threshold activism. Findings indicate heterogeneous short-term associations rather than causal intervention effects. REWIND therefore shows promise as a situated environmental education activity, while requiring further iterative testing of validity, practicality, and effectiveness.