Brazil is a country marked by extreme social inequality. Income is concentrated in the hands of a few, while in favelas and peripheral areas, the population lives in extreme poverty and faces daily armed violence. Public education infrastructure is severely lacking. In such a large and unequal country, it is difficult to offer the same school conditions to everyone. Schools often lack teacher and student training, internet access, and computers. This situation affects all regions of the country, but it is especially severe in the most remote and vulnerable areas, such as the Amazon, rural communities, and favelas. Preparing our children and young people for the future becomes a major challenge. In a technological and connected world, many people in Brazil still do not know how to turn on a computer.
With this in mind, we created the itinerant STEAM program, which brings training to teachers and students, traveling from city to city, building STEAM labs, and donating kits that support the development of technology-based projects with positive social impact. After each training session, a research group is formed by students and teachers, who then use the lab to create and develop new technologies for their school and community. Additionally, the kits include teaching guides that help students become multipliers for new participants. Projects such as automated gardens, water and energy conservation systems, and biodegradable straws made from local plants.
We are seeking funding partners to support the creation and construction of a STEAM lab in a school located in a remote region of the country. After securing support, we partner with the school administration to explain the entire program step by step, ensuring the involvement of the whole school community, including the families of the children and young people.
The goal is for the STEAM research group to be created and self-managed by the students and teachers, who will work together to develop technologies for the entire community using the lab materials and educational kit. We also seek the school’s commitment to helping students participate in mathematics, robotics, and science events and competitions at the local, regional, national, and international levels.
Once the partnership agreement is signed, we provide training to students and teachers, install the equipment, and supply the school with educational materials and technological automation kits containing various components. Ongoing support is provided virtually to assist in structuring and advancing the projects created by the students.
The program is expanding throughout the country with the support of organizations such as ChildFund Brazil and others that promote tech education from early schooling onward, aiming to prepare children and young people for the future. The program began in 2017 in Pacajus, Ceará, in the Northeast region of Brazil. It later expanded to additional cities in the region and now operates in four Brazilian states: Ceará, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. More than 500 students have been trained, and over 100 kits have been donated.
The idea of developing laboratories and kits emerged when we realized that Brazilian public schools lacked the infrastructure necessary for STEAM education. For this reason, we decided to expand the project to all ages within the school cycle and provide both infrastructure and study materials to support teachers and students in technological learning, while also strengthening the teaching of Science and Mathematics—ultimately preparing students for the future.
We realized it was impossible to teach STEAM without access to proper infrastructure. Schools lacked computers, internet access, teaching materials, and technological components. From that point on, in addition to providing STEAM technical training for teachers and students, we began donating teaching kits, educational materials for STEAM instruction, computers, scientific research tools, mechanical tools, and robotic components. We now provide all the materials and infrastructure necessary for students to learn, create, and develop projects that use technology to generate socio-environmental impact from within the school itself.
The first technology created through the program came from a teacher who developed a formula using grass and sugarcane—plants abundant in the region—to produce biodegradable straws. The mixture is placed into molds and solidifies, resulting in straws that replace plastic ones at the school. This innovation received an award at the FEBRACE National Science Fair and was created collaboratively by the teacher and her class of students.
Visit the Social Brasilis website and send us an email through the contact tab to request information about upcoming classes, to recommend a school to receive the program, or to support the funding of a program and laboratory for a school in a favela or remote area in Brazil or abroad. We will conduct a study and mapping of the school’s territory and analyze the local challenges so that students can develop solutions to these issues using technology, based on the donated infrastructure and the STEAM-focused teaching materials.
