Despite the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic which has closed businesses and schools, MUZEIKO has no intention of giving up on children. Since March, we have been streaming live for free every day, reaching around 95,000 views in 40 days. The project will help us support kids and parents in our community. It will allow us to produce 90 new edutainment videos (science, art, storytelling, DIY, virtual tours) that will engage no less than 75,000 children across Bulgaria in 3 months.
The ongoing spread of the COVID-19 virus posed serious challenges to education on a global level. In Bulgaria, all formal and non-formal educational organisations were closed on March 13th. The school year will end at home. In this situation, teachers and parents are struggling to sustain children's motivation, regular educational process and results at a satisfactory level. Teachers are not adequately prepared to implement distance learning models that were introduced with emergency.
Muzeiko has a proven track record of success in stimulating children's curiosity by learning through interactive activities and content, and can contribute to addressing these problems by investing in the development of more online resources and educational materials that can be used effectively in virtual settings: simple DIY activities, science demonstrations and fairy tales, virtual tours and interactive lesson kits for teachers.
The initiative will create inspiring science-oriented content that promotes a creative and innovative learning approach, building on interdisciplinary inquiry-based and evidence-based practices. The materials produced will be promoted widely and are expected to live long beyond the project's lifetime, enriching the landscape of formal, non-formal and informal education. To date, there is a limited variety of children-friendly, accessible and captivating edutainment videos in Bulgaria.
