Each year, between February and April, educators across Europe – and beyond – mark their calendars in anticipation of the Scientix STEM Discovery Campaign. The campaign, organised by Scientix®, an initiative of European Schoolnet, celebrates the efforts of teachers and collects a treasure-trove of STEM-related activities that cover the whole breadth of STEM topics and shape our everyday lives.

The 2026 Scientix STEM Discovery Campaign was a joint international initiative co-organized with the NBS Academy project. The campaign reached over 200.000 teachers and 800.000 students, collecting 9.000 activities submitted to various Scientix® Awards. As part of the campaign, LOESS supported the Scientix Soil Guardians Award. The award invited teachers to develop and submit a learning scenario or a story of implementation using LOESS resources and teachers’ own resourcefulness. Over 450 of the 9.000 entries focused on soil-related topics, highlighting teachers’ creativity in designing engaging activities that spark students’ curiosity for soil health. These entries ranged from school gardens activities -designed to teach students how to make their own compost at home-to community-wide tree planting activities, allowing students to see the impact of their actions beyond the school walls, etc.

Out of the 450 soil related entries two winning entries were recognized for their originality and impact on student learning:

• Designing an Interdisciplinary Soil Education Learning Scenario for STEM Education, Hayrullah Aslan (Türkiye)
• Soil Stories of Chios Island: From Ashes to Mastic Gold, Despoina Armenaki, Kyriakoula Aivalioti and Angela Geronteli (Greece)

The winners are invited to attend the upcoming Science Projects Workshop (SPW) in Brussels at the European Schoolnet office where they will exchange ideas, collaborate on innovative educational practices, and build meaningful connections through networking sessions and peer learning.

Interested in learning more about the 2026 STEM Discovery Campaign? View all activities and background information on Scientix®!