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Brazilian Creative Learning Network

place Brazil

We promote and enable playful, creative and relevant hands-on education opportunities for children and young people throughout Brazil

The Brazilian Creative Learning Network is a grassroots movement that implements playful, creative and relevant hands-on educational practices in schools and non-formal learning spaces throughout Brazil. To achieve that, BCLN organizes programs and events that give voice to thousands of educators, researchers, managers, entrepreneurs, artists, families and students from the whole country.

Creativity
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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

Creativity

Web presence

2015

Established

200K

Children

1

Countries
Target group
All
Updated
January 2023
By fostering creative and relevant hands-on learning experiences, we empower children and young people to engage with the world in a more meaningful and active way.

About the innovation

Fostering creative learning in Brazil

What we do?

The Brazilian Creative Learning Network promotes and supports creative learning through a broad range of programs including:


  • Organization of local, regional, and national events like Festivals of Invention and Creativity, Scratch Days and the yearly Brazilian Creative Learning Conference;

  • Establishing regional hubs and task forces;

  • Pedagogic support through the design and implementation of resources and professional development workshops for educators;

  • Organization of year long fellowships to support emerging leaders and their projects

  • Creation of new tools and support materials;

  • Dissemination and exchange of experiences through meet-ups and online portal.

BCLNs approach empowers educators and school leaders while allowing for local adaptations, essential for succeeding in a country as large as Brazil. It fosters the buy-in of local partners including libraries, universities, social entrepreneurs and not-for-profit organizations. In this way, BCLN creates a vibrant reinforcing community of committed educators who bring innovation and playfulness back into the classroom and other educational environments.

Our approach has proven successful. In just 5 years with six full time staff members BCLN has reached 21,000 educators across the far corners of Brazil, from vulnerable communities in major urban centers to villages in the Amazon. With BCLN leadership, Brazil became the largest host of Scratch Days, a global initiative that fosters creative computing among youth. Through the systemic adoption program, the BCLN reaches out more than 2 million students in public schools.

Why we do it?

We believe that all Brazilians, since their early childhood, should have the opportunity to develop their creative potential and collaborate to build a more meaningful world.

Learn more from the Brazilian Creative Learning Network MANIFESTO.

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Brazilian Creative Learning Network inspires families and communities to creative engagements by providing a platform for project making and designing. This initiative can bring about significant changes in people's mindset and instil creativity in a local and global setting.

HundrED Academy Reviews

Very impactful to organize programs and events that give voice to thousands of educators, researchers, managers, entrepreneurs, artists, families and students from the whole country.

The simplicity in approach, and impact of the programs – working with children, teacher education and easy to implement practices. They promote and enable playful, creativity and make it both impactful and scalable.

- Academy member
Academy review results
High Impact
Low Scalability
High Impact
High Scalability
Low Impact
Low Scalability
Low Impact
High Scalability
Read more about our selection process

Implementation steps

Identify and embrace individuals and organizations

Take a look around!

Rather than emphasizing our own tools and methods, we started from the assumption that there were many people in Brazil who's work already aligned with the principles of creative learning. Who is doing interesting work in your community? What are their challenges and their vision of education? Invite them to a cup of coffee - even a virtual one! - and start sharing.

Our work is built on the premise that there are many creative learning initiatives already in the world. However, those initiatives tend to be very isolated from one another. By connecting people with one another, current initiatives grow stronger and new ones emerge.

Collaborate with them in designing initiatives

Diversity will enrich the projects!Listen to the diverse voices in your community in order to solve real problems. Make sure the local cultures, the many social and economic groups are being part of the conversation. If some members are not speaking out, ask them for feedback whenever you want to validate a project or an idea. Create together!Include a "hands-on" activity in the design of your online and in person gatherings. Allowing people to express their ideas through building something together is a great way to think about learning.

Promote the lessons learned

The lessons learned in one part of the country can be extremely valuable to people in other parts of the country, whether they are just getting started or grappling with troublesome obstacles moving forward.

Keep tinkering, there's no recipe!

Keep the conversation alive about:


  • What was particularly engaging?

  • Are we diverging from our vision?

  • Are we having fun?

Keep feeding the Network!

Use the feedback from the community to revise ideas, methods, tools, resources, and everything else that is remixable.

Spread of the innovation

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