Robotics and early-years stem education: the botSTEM project

botSTEM is an ERASMUS+ project aiming to raise the utilisation of inquiry-based collaborative learning and robot-enhanced education. The project outputs are specifically aimed to provide in- and pre-service teachers in Childhood and Primary Education, and children aged between 4 and 8, with research-based materials and practices that use integrated Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) and robot-based approaches, including code-learning, for enhancing scientific literacy in young children. This presentation presents initial results in terms of a collection of tested educational practices summarized in a freely downloadable Toolkit, and results from a qualitative analysis of implemented activities in Swedish preschools. The preliminary analysis of the implementations indicates that robots function as motivation factors in young children’s inquiry of science and engineering design technology, in both teacher and children initiated learning situations.. Also, when compared, digital programming with a use of robots promotes discussions among teachers and children that involve more versatile robotic words then un-plugged programming does.