In order to establish a meaningful and sustainable school-based OSHub, where school projects meet real-life challenges and learning takes place within the community ecosystem, the educational community is guided through a series of steps:

The objective of these sessions is to bring together the local municipality and the school heads of the existing schools to discuss the project, its objectives and respective impact, and to jointly define the general strategy of OSHub-GR. On average, these meetings happen once a year, a couple of months before the start of the new school year (to define future strategies but also to evaluate previous actions).

By guiding school heads, teachers and key stakeholders through a co-creation process, these workshops are aimed at setting a common vision and goals for the coming school year. On average, these workshops happen once a year, before the start of the new school year.

The scope of this approach is to increase teacher’s knowledge and autonomy with technological tools, such as 3D Design & Printing, Arduino and AppInventor, so that teachers can use them in a confident and independent way together with their students. Once learners get to grips with the basics of these tools, they are guided through a co-creation process to identify local issues or opportunities that can be tackled through science and technology projects. This is an ongoing process, grounded on inquiry-based and hands-on learning. The ultimate goal of this approach is to develop inclusive, hands-on educational methods and a curriculum based on real life-issues, which will engage and motivate students, while providing them with knowledge and important skills, like problem-solving and collaboration.

Throughout the school year, the OSHub-GR team also keeps regular contact with students to ensure that the projects are on track and to gather feedback and ideas for improvement. On an ad-hoc basis it also provides specific training on particular themes of interest or specific tools.

Particularly when there are academic partners involved, the organisation of workshops about science communication methodologies and tools is very relevant to demonstrate the importance of reaching out to the general public and to the local community, and to share the research processes and outcomes happening at universities and research institutes. In the specific case of OSHub-GR, these workshops triggered the interest of the Aegean University, and its students, to collaborate in the organisation of the first Aegean Festival in the island of Limnos.

OSHub-GR created a simple guide to support schools setting-up their own makerspaces, which includes information about material, equipment, tools and safety. This document is updated on a continuous basis based on the experience of the participating schools.