What does future-oriented learning look like when children are given space to build, experiment, collaborate, reflect, and imagine together?
A newly released short film from the Experience Workshop STEAM Winter Camp in Beijing offers a glimpse into one possible answer.
The intensive one-week program brought together 100 primary school children for more than 30 STEAM learning sessions combining mathematics, engineering, robotics, sustainability, cognitive games, design, and digital learning through playful, hands-on experiences.
The camp was designed and facilitated by the international team of Experience Workshop in collaboration with local educational partners and contributors. Rather than treating science, mathematics, technology, and creativity as separate school subjects, the program approached learning as an interconnected ecosystem of exploration, construction, dialogue, and invention.
Throughout the week, children engaged in activities including:
- 4Dframe engineering and robotics
- Mondrian Blocks cognitive games
- STARSchool adaptive digital learning
- Geometric design and spatial reasoning
- Renewable energy and sustainability workshops
- SDG-based “Planetary Responsibility Labs”
- Collaborative reflection and creative prototyping
The pedagogical philosophy behind the camp reflects Experience Workshop’s long-term mission to create learning environments where curiosity, creativity, and collaboration become central drivers of educational experience.
At Experience Workshop, we believe that:
“Children do not learn the future by memorizing it — they learn it by inventing it.”
The video intentionally focuses not only on finished products or technological tools, but also on processes of thinking together: experimenting, failing, redesigning, discussing, and discovering. In this sense, the camp was as much about developing agency, imagination, and confidence as it was about learning STEAM content itself.
Several elements of the program also explored how playful learning can connect with larger societal and planetary questions. Through sustainability-focused design challenges and collaborative SDG activities, children were encouraged to think not only as learners, but also as future citizens, designers, and problem-solvers.
The camp further demonstrates Experience Workshop’s broader international approach to STEAM education: combining embodied learning, creative construction, cognitive games, reflective practice, digital tools, and interdisciplinary thinking into coherent educational ecosystems adaptable across cultures and contexts.
Special thanks go to Principal Ma Jun and the school community, the PDC Network, Imre Kökényesi, Virág and János Balázs, and the STARSchool team for their contributions to the program.
Would you like to participate in a similar educational tour?
info@experienceworkshop.org
+358452560420
