<< Background >>High-quality early childhood education is an extraordinarily powerful way to promote continued success in school, in the workplace, and in society. The skills and attitudes children acquire in their early years have disproportionally large impacts relative to those acquired during their later school years. The unprecedented rate of change in the world around us creates profound uncertainty about the future. Creativity, openness, collaboration, resilience, cognitive elasticity as well as social and emotional competencies are becoming an essential toolkit for any child and STEM education is becoming vital in helping children better understand the world and relate to it. This has placed increasing responsibility and demand on pre-school teachers which are the main facilitators of inciting and nurturing diverse sets of skills in pre-school children. To deepen and diversify crucial skills, knowledge, and attitudes of pre-school teachers in Europe and beyond, Cell Biology and Art Class Omnibus (CACAO) project bring together biology and music researchers, artists, pre-school teachers, and experts in technology-assisted learning from five European countries to co-create unique pre-school learning program blending cell biology, music, dance, and visual art. There is a wealth of research in cognitive psychology and neurosciences that immersion in activities that combine multiple sensory skills such as singing, playing, clapping, and dancing makes a dramatic difference in cognitive development and success in education. However, there remains a concomitant lack of education and training for contemporary educators in the early childhood sector on how they might use music effectively as an educational tool. Moreover, the STEM training falls substantially short in the core education of pre-school teachers as well.<< Objectives >>To bridge this gap by developing and implementing a highly innovative and inclusive pedagogical concept blending music, visual art, and cell biology, we gathered ten partners from five European countries. The reach of our partnership will undoubtedly greatly enhance the dissemination, impact, and exploitation of the project results thus contributing to future joint initiatives on the European level leading to a lasting and profound change. The CACAO pedagogical program will be developed for five and six-year-old children and their teachers who will get certified professional education on using music as an educational tool to teach children biological concepts. The inherent inclusive nature of music and art through which the CACAO program teaches biological concepts will support the inclusion of preschool children with special educational needs in all educational activities. All activities are inherently inclusive and will focus on the fulfillment of the personal development plan of each child involved while respecting their educational needs. This novel and interdisciplinary educational approach would not be possible without the support of two additional target groups, parents whose children will be involved in such a program, and preschool headmasters who will recognize the value and the need for such a program. In our international partnership, we have experts in different disciplines as well as preschool institutions coming from different pedagogical traditions addressing the common goals of European preschool systems. These partners will develop a strong sense of shared interests helping to frame problems from a wider perspective.<< Implementation >>To achieve this, we will organize four trainings organized by the members of our partnership. In such an interdisciplinary group, comprised of scientists, academics, and practitioners it is necessary to complement each other’s, knowledge, skills, and experiences. The first training will cover design thinking in curriculum design, basic cell biology training, and training on how to use virtual collaborative ILDE 2 platform for co-creation of the project results. The second training will cover music as a learning and communication tool and embodied learning. The third training will cover engaging communication in front of the camera and the process of creating an online course, as well as the use on online learning tools for continuous professional development. The fourth training will be hands-on training to test newly developed activities in working with children.<< Results >>During the two years of the project implementation, we will collaboratively create five project results. The first and second project results are curriculum designed for blending biology and art (with emphasis on music) for pre-school children and curriculum designed for blending biology and art (with emphasis on music) for early childhood educators and a definition of CACAO certification. Then, we will CACAO online platform with the web repository of activities, songs, video, and sound material for the CACAO curriculum. The fourth project result will be CACAO certified online course for early childhood educators following CACAO curriculum design, allowing continuous professional development in STEAM for preschool educators. Finally, we will conduct an extensive scientific evaluation of the impact of CACAO program implementation and create Final Project Report. Project activities and results are designed to strengthen STEAM learning in the preschool setting, by developing an innovative educational program and creating complementary professional training for the preschool educators as well as the wealth of material for seamless implementation of the CACAO program.In summary, for the first time to our knowledge, the CACAO project will design and implement structured multidisciplinary curricula for pre-school educators and pre-school kids, complemented with free and comprehensive training and the omnibus of interdisciplinary activities where multifaceted effects of art will be harnessed to immerse both the pre-school teachers and the pre-school children in the world of cell biology to ignite the life-long love for both disciplines.

<< Background >>How can a sensuous approach and artistic attitude contribute to an education that leads to a more connected and sustainable world? This is the question that brings together each of the 6 European partners in SenseSquared, a project from Belgium, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands (2). All partners are strongly rooted in the arts. They are passionate about the significance of the arts for education, teacher training and related research. Moreover, they are deeply committed to exploring and demonstrating the value of artistic approaches for education together. Their main aim is to show that a sensuous approach, based on artistic attitudes can and even should become the core of all education.SenseSquared highlights how the need for societal change relates to the nature of current education. Of course, education has evolved since the 19th century. However, there happens to be a big gap between its intentions and effects in schools, while its main paradigm has largely stayed the same. On top of this, it is a known fact that both schools and society struggle with diversity and inclusion. Nevertheless, diversity can be regarded as the main feature of reality. Schools struggle with inclusion, although inclusion can be regarded as the most essential part of a society. If schools are expected to reflect and shape the society in which they are embedded, in the current situation the aforementioned aspects happen to be fundamentally problematic.It seems clear that we need an education that not only allows diversity. We need one that promotes diversity and fosters communication, as it enhances the probability of finding solutions, allows for unexpected outcomes and offers the possibility for everyone to connect. We need an education where as many children and teachers as possible can flourish in connection with each other and the world. Therefore, we need a more sensuous and artistic approach. The arts are the glue that connects diversity with inclusion, inclusion with understanding. They offer a wealth of completely new approaches towards an education based on the way we relate to each other and the world. The arts can offer the kind of education that our societies need.<< Objectives >>SenseSquared’s main objective is to show that a sensuous and artistic attitude can open up new and unexpected perspectives in educational settings. We show that adopting such an attitude can take place in a rather short amount of time. It is rewarding and joyful for everyone involved. It has a profound and lasting influence on the individual level. On top, it results in deep learning and aligns with the regular curriculum in schools.The main questions the project explores are: How can we relate to each other? How can we relate to the world? How can artists, researchers, teachers and children alike, shape the education that our society needs?The ‘temporal arts’, like music, dance, drama & performance art, serve as a model to investigate what it means to explore, to improvise, to vary and to compose in the context of shared and embodied experiences and activities based in the senses. As such, they reflect the main aspects by which we carry our lives. Taking the musicality of the mother-infant dyad as an evolutionary prototype for education, we show that a different stance to education is possible. SenseSquared shows that this new approach- isn’t difficult to understand and apply,- can gradually slip into the given school system, - can be interwoven with regular subjects within the curriculum,- has a profound positive impact on children-teachers interaction,- deeply and intuitively connects to the humanity of teachers and children,- contributes substantially to the intrinsic motivation and joy of learning.SenseSquared cooperates with teachers from pre-school/Kindergarten, over primary school to secondary education. The project offers an uninterrupted view on human mental and social development from birth till 18 years old, while evolving from a blurred understanding into more complexity. It allows new ideas to strongly take root in schools that already chose exploring new ways of becoming educated, while adding confidence and consistency to their pedagogical project. SenseSquared opens doors to address the needs of our current and future societies. It shows how education can free itself from outdated, unnecessary and sometimes even harmful ideas and habits. Together, we not only head towards, but also shape a future that will be in many ways different, and better.<< Implementation >>SenseSquared proposes a hands-on approach from the very start. This allows teachers and children to immediately get immersed in provoking generic formats, exercises, contexts, tools and kits that relate to the temporal arts. All will be very easy to start with. They can be expanded to any level of artistic complexity. Some activities are simply interactive, others have a special focus, e.g. involve the voice, use digital technology, or take place online. Teachers can gradually find connections to integrate them into the regular subjects of the curriculum. A team ethnographic study coordinated by Maastricht University and conducted by all members of the project in their local sites will develop a new evaluation methodology appropriate to the new approach.While digital technologies inevitably become part of our daily lives, they make part of this project as well. We will critically focus on the way they can fit into the proposed approach. The pandemic has forced us to make even more advantage of the possibilities for real time online interaction. It also made us aware of technology’s limitations for rich human interaction. In order to become more aware of these and at the same time exploring solutions, our activities will focus on different kinds of sensuous presence. Here we explore and balance between mere physical activities and the ones that involve online and offline digital technology.All the above will be an essential part of future education. In all of this SenseSquared strives to have an interrelated, sensuous presence among participants. The formats will become qualitatively enhanced as the result of the partners’ combined expertise. Their concrete applications will take place in cooperation with local schools and during teacher training sessions, in which partners are involved. At the end of the project, all project results will be gathered as a freely available collection of practices, involving tools and kits. Other (teams of) teachers from the broader educational public will be able to actively acquaint themselves with the activities.Participating institutions will be encouraged to evolve further in the proposed approaches after the end of the project, and as a means of gradually transforming their educational approach into the direction of the proposed paradigm.<< Results >>As previously stated, we aim at proposing a new paradigm for education. We offer different entrances to bring the SenseSquared approach of sensuous learning into practice in a school’s context. For an overall introduction, we refer to the publications following the project’s multiplier events. The proceedings of the First SenseSquared Conference will be freely available as a downloadable pdf. It contains the theoretical underpinnings of the project’s main ideas. The proceedings of the Second SenseSquared Conference will be published as a pdf as well. It zooms in on the different contexts, formats and exercises. You’ll find out how and why we call them generic. You’ll learn how to adopt and interweave them in your own practice.Those who want to delve into the SenseSquared practice of sensuous learning, will have various entrance points. SenseSquared will result in a team ethnographic study led by Maastricht University. The book, which will be published in print, reports on how children and teachers have been able to get acquainted with the proposed ideas, how they managed to implement or interweave them in their existing context, and what were the pitfalls.hEAR DROPS is a free, monthly online offer on YouTube that promotes offline artistic interactions among children and teachers. Zintuin is a diverse collection of generic exercises applicable in a context with young children or teenagers, depending on the expectations with the target group. All exercises illustrate in an accessible way the main aspects of human musicality. Zooming 1000 BIRDS Constellation is an online international seminar that explores possibilities of interaction between children, teachers and artists promoting real time, online sensuous presence through the internet. 1000 BIRDS’ artistic intervention is the international artistic production that incites the aforementioned seminar. Tools & Kits is a collection of materials that breathe the SenseSquared approach of sensuous interactions in a tangible way. They inspire for sensory exercises, or for making or collecting similar objects yourself. Anyone interested in singing or just the voice will be able to freely download the course by Stavanger University that invites exploring the sensuous possibilities of the human voice. Awareness of an immersive context, and how to shape it, will be the subject of yet another freely available publication. For delving deeper, The Takeover - Inhabiting the Sensuous, presents the underpinnings of artistic interventions into education.All of the aforementioned material or publications will be freely available through the SenseSquared website even long after the project has concluded. The SenseSquared platform will offer the possibility for real life and worldwide online artistic interactions with other teachers looking for groundbreaking educational approaches from a sensuous, artistic attitude.