Project Square

Launched in 2018, Project Square is an open education initiative championing computational thinking as a transversal skill in the context of human smart cities.

Project Square came to life with a strong mission to democratize computational thinking in primary school classrooms through participators design activities beyond the screens and connected to real-world challenges.

In a rapidly changing world, understanding the world in computational terms is an increasingly valuable asset for everybody. As research shows, a computational thinking mindset opens endless possibilities for educators and students to create, design, and to develop solutions that can improve the lives of communities.

After a four year development and piloting phase involving leading Swiss universities, researchers, designers and thousands of teachers across Switzerland, Project Square was included in the pioneering EduNum project in the Canton of Vaud and became part of the curriculum for 5th and 6th grades.

Links:
Décodage
Discover Project Square
Kick-off Activities
Create Activities
Robotics Activities

Would you like to bring Project Square to your school or become a co-creator? You can register for testing sessions through the Swiss EdTech Collider National Testbed Programm, or join Project Square on Roteco,

Project Square CC BY-NC-SA

Contributors

Educreators Foundation
Cristina Riesen, initiator, lead, design and development
Dr. Franziska Spring, learning activities designer
Gregory Pepper, design and development
Emma Segal, design
Aneta Peckelová, design and development
Ricardo Monagas, development

Contributors SUPSI
Serena Cangiano, lead researcher and designer
Lorenzo Romagnoli, interaction designer
Luca Belfiore, visual designer and research assistant
Valentina Meldi, graphic designer
Marco Lurati, co-manager of FabLab SUPSI, expert fabrication of physical products
Massimo Botta, head of research, design project supervisor
Prof. Dr. Matthias Hauswirth, USI Computer Science
Dr. Alessandro Giusti, researcher at IDSIA Institute of Artificial Intelligence USI/SUPSI

Contributors EPFL LEARN Center, Robotics Departments, HEP Vaud, Roteco
Prof. Dr. Francesco Mondada, Scientific Director EPFL LEARN, EPFL Robotics
Frédérique Chessel-Lazzarotto, Direction EPFL LEARN Formation Enseignantes VD
Morgane Chevalier, researcher computational thinking EPFL LEARN, enseignante HEP
Marc Lafuente Martinez, researcher computational thinking EPFl LEARN
Evgeniia Bonnet, researcher EPFL LEARN
Melissa Skweres, collaborator EPFL LEARN
Sophia Reyes Mury, community manager Roteco
Christophe Dumas, chargé de projets
Sebastian Actis-Datta, FabLab HEP

Contributors ETH Zurich
Prof. Dr. Manu Kapur, Scientific Director ETH Learning Sciences Lab
Dragan Trninic, researcher learning sciences ETH
Julia Chatain, researcher learning sciences ETH

Contributors HumanIST Institute, Smart City Lab University of St. Gallen
Edy Portmann, Swiss Post Professor at the University of Fribourg and Member of the Board of the Swiss Informatics Society
Sara d’Onofrio, Researcher, Smart City Lab