Module 4-Lesson Plan

3.4 Real-world problems you can implement in your STEM class

 — Activity —

Real-world problems you can implement in your STEM class

In Module 3, we explored just a handful of interdisciplinary real-world STEM activities and now it is time for you to join forces with your peers and create more. Share a new idea of real-world problems that you can implement in your STEM class and explore the ideas of your peers to identify those you find especially relevant and offer further ideas by commenting.

PADLET

I would like to make my students explore why some people need glasses. This way we will use Physics and Biology and study the lenses.

INSPIRATION:

ACTIVITY:

Find two resources in the Scientix repository

Look around in the Scientix repository and find two resources that you can use in your teaching. Post them in this Padlet

PADLET

My contribution:

1. "ELECTROSTATIC JUMPS!" https://youtu.be/K74RoAvfhms

2. MAGNETISM 

3.3 Scientix: The STEM lessons resources repository

The Scientix resources repository! You can access this vast resource repository by clicking here. You can browse the more than 5500 different learning materials.

Watch this video by Victor J. Perez-Rubio, from European Schoolnet to learn more about the Scientix repository:

ACTIVITY:

Find two resources in the Scientix repository

Look around in the Scientix repository and find two resources that you can use in your teaching. Post them in this Padlet

PADLET

My contribution:

1. "ELECTROSTATIC JUMPS!" https://youtu.be/K74RoAvfhms

2. MAGNETISM 

3.2 Implementing real-world problems in your classroom in an interdisciplinary way

Interdisciplinary activities: Biology and Mathematics

One might think that Biology and Mathematics do not have a lot in common, but that is rarely the case. A deep knowledge of Mathematics is essential for biologists; it helps them perform their calculations easily and correctly. Experimentation in Biology requires analysis that is impossible to carry out without applying mathematical formulas.

One of the examples of such application of Mathematics is in the calculation of the nutritive values of food articles, which is the topic of our Healthy Breakfast Activity. You can download the Healthy Breakfast Activity here, and the PowerPoint Presentation to go along with your lesson here.

The second activity explains the science behind one of the most popular sports in the world – basketball. You can download The Perfect Shot Activity here and please watch the video below to learn more about how to implement this activity in your classroom.

Interdisciplinary activities: Chemistry and Physics

Similarly to Mathematics, Physics is nowadays very much used in all Science subjects. Both Physics and Chemistry are best understood through project-based experiments. Project-based learning (PBL) is a student-centred pedagogical method that involves students receiving fact-based tasks, problems to solve and they work in groups. This kind of learning usually transcends traditional subjects and requires a more dynamic classroom. Project-based experiments can illustrate the concepts covered in the classroom. At the same time, learning in a laboratory is a great opportunity for students to learn to work cooperatively in groups and develop 21st-century skills. We have prepared two such activities for you.

Download STEM'n eggs activity here, and watch the video below to get some tips on how to implement this activity with your students:

If your students do not like eggs but enjoy something sweet, try the STEM Jam Activity. Download the activity here and please watch the video below where our STEM teachers share their experiences:

Interdisciplinary activities: Primary Education

Each subject in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) are interconnected, so instead of teaching Mathematics as separate from Technology or Science, they can be taught together to resemble the use of knowledge in real life. Most STEM teaching in primary education is already interdisciplinary. This is very important, because it fosters a lifelong love for learning and for science.

While it can be rather difficult to find real-world interdisciplinary activities for students in secondary education, teachers in primary education can explain STEM through everyday activities such as doing your laundry or by creating fun toys such as a string phone. Together with primary school teachers, we created two excellent examples.

Download Laundry Day Activity here, and String Phone Activity here. Watch the video below to learn more about the Laundry Day Activity.

3.1 The value of an interdisciplinary approach to STEM

An interdisciplinary approach relates to more than one category of knowledge. In education, interdisciplinary teaching refers to teaching across different subjects. It is based on incorporating knowledge and skills from more than one subject in order to enrich the overall educational experience. There are many benefits of interdisciplinary approach, such as:

• It helps students to think critically, 
• Develops their lifelong learning and problem-solving skills
• Increase passion for learning and develops communication and creativity, just to name a few.

While the word STEM can be interpreted as the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, it can also be treated as a whole.

ACTIVITY:

What is the most significant advantage of an interdisciplinary approach to STEM lessons? 

PADLET

My contribution:

In my opinion, the most important advantage of interdisciplinarity in STEM lessons is the fact that the students connect the lesson to the real world and to problem-solving, where every challenge is a whole and not parts of a subject. For example, solving water pollution issues are linked to physics, chemistry, math, biology, sociology and many other sectors. This way, the students are more excited, more focused in learning and definitively more engaged.

Badge of Module 2

2.5 Licenses

It is important that we know how we can protect our work from being used without our consent - or, on the flip side, we want to let others know that they can share and use our work.

                                        Creative Commons and the importance of licenses

                                       Creative Commons was created for authors (also called 

                                      licensors) to grant copyright permissions to their creative 

                                           work, and provide the recipients a regulated way of 

                              knowing what authors desire regarding the usage of their material.

Activity:

Licenses in STEM discoveries: Can everything be licensed?

There are ethical rules regarding the licenses and copyrights. For example: should we allow copyrights when modifying DNA chains? Or, in the field of pharmaceutics, after discovering a new type of medication, which was expensive for a private company to develop but could save lives if it was publicly available?

Padlet

My contribution:

In my opinion, we must respect other people's work. We have to mention the source of everything we use and respect the creative common copyrights. As for what I believe should be free, should be the information about the Health and the Education. We should teach our students to respect the work of other and when they want to use pictures or other digital stuff, they should make a research in Public Domain or Attribution CC BY.

                           This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even                                   commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most                                 accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and                             use of licensed materials.

2.3 Real-world STEM activities to use in your classroom

Activity

Real-world STEM activities to use in your classroom

Please choose one of the activities from section 2.2, try it with your students and share your experience and/or pictures on the Padlet below. Try to include as many details as possible, such as what worked and didn’t work, and what you would change if you were to run the same activity again. In case integrating the activity in the curriculum proves difficult, ask your students to identify the STEM aspect of an everyday activity! Share their answers below.

My contribution:

One of the activities I tried with my students was during the class of Physics. The students had to check the mass of materials. They brought packings of food  and read the labels. They wrote down the mass in grammars or in kilograms. Then, they compared the packages of food with hand-made libras.

My contribution:

One of the activities I tried with my students was during the class of Physics. The students had to check the mass of materials. They brought packings of food  and read the labels. They wrote down the mass in grammars or in kilograms. Then, they compared the packages of food with hand-made libras.

What worked:

It was easy for the students to find the mass by reading the packing.

What didn't work: The students couldn't say with the right words what mass is (the amount of matter in a material).

Nice experiments I've found for my 5th grade class

Teaching DENSITY:

Hot and Warm:

Study WEATHER PHENOMENONS:

Create a Rocket with vinegar and soda:

2.1 STEM in the real world

Engage students in real-world STEM problems

STEM is not about making students solve numerous equations for the sake of solving them, instead, they should learn how to

 think scientifically and critically when observing the world around them. 

                                Experiments:                       

 

Mystery box:

Alternative to exams: projects, open-ended tasks, group work, lab work, portfolios, virtual labs

Ideas of experimenting:

More experiments

ACTIVITY:

STEM and the real world

Do you agree that most students don't have an appreciation for science because they can't relate it to the real world? How do you deal with it in your STEM classes? Share useful experiences and resources

PADLET

My contribution:

I do not agree that students are not interested in STEM classes. They like Science classes with experiments, they are eager to Technology and ICT, they adore engineering, although there is not much time for that in the curriculum. What they do not like so much is algorithms in Math and problems that are not connected to real life. If the teachers do not connect real life problems to Math, with hands-on activities and projects, I agree that students won't be engaged to that. 

Module 1 Badge

1.5 Essential 21st-century skills for today’s students

What are 21st-century skills?

           

It is important to note that there is no clear consensus on what skills should be included in the category of 21st-century skills. The term itself represents a list of skills that students need to acquire for work, life and citizenship. Let’s look at some proposed skills.

For instance, Tony Wagner suggests seven survival skills:

• Critical thinking and problem-solving;
• Collaboration and leadership;
• Effective oral and written communication;
• Accessing and analysing information;
• Curiosity and imagination;
• Initiative and entrepreneurialism;
• Agility and adaptability.

Main points:

ACTIVITY:

What other skills do you consider to be crucial for 21st-century learning?

Can you list some examples of how you teach your students 21st-century skills?

PADLET

My contribution:

I would add problem-solving and decision-making skills. For problem-solving, I would suggest activities where my students are given a problem, like misbehaving in school and bullying, and I would let them find ways to prevent these behaviors. My students could take interviews or create a movie. For decision-making skills, I would let the children organize a visit in a place they like and let them take care all the necessary actions to make that happen.

1.4 Changing the educational paradigm

We live in a world of accelerating change. New industries are constantly being born and old ones are becoming obsolete. A report by the World Economic Forum reveals that almost 65 percent of children today will end up in careers that don't even exist yet. The research conducted by the World Economic Forum in some of the world's leading companies, regarding what would be seen as the most important job skill in 2020, shows that the number one response is complex problem-solving. Other skills on their top ten list include 

• critical thinking, 
• creativity, 
• collaboration, and 
• emotional intelligence.

Of course, not everyone agrees with Sir Ken Robinson; one of the sceptics is British education blogger, teacher, author and expert on education research Tom Bennett. He disagrees with Sir Ken Robison from a teacher’s point of view, as Robison was never a teacher. Tom Bennett thinks that Robinson doesn’t have a full picture of the public education system and that there is no evidence to support what Robinson says. Click here if you want to learn more about why Tom Bennett disagrees with Sir Ken Robison.

ACTIVITY

Do you agree with Sir Ken Robinson?

Do you agree with Sir Ken Robinson that the educational systems are still based on an industrial paradigm, they are outdated and not suitable for the 21st century? If you agree, share the most important things you think should change. If you disagree, share your views on how the current educational system is preparing students for the job market. 

PADLET

My contribution

I agree with Sir Ken Robinson in some points. I agree that the current educational system in many countries, like here in Greece, is prioritizing mechanical knowledge based on recalling and memorizing procedures. There are a few activities in the curriculum, promoting team work, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving, but apart from being very very few, in the end, the assessment of the students is totally based on the old methods of who can memorize best and who writes down what the text book says! There is a significant urge for rearranging the current educational system, but this is not easy. The teacher in a classroom of 20 and 25 students cannot use personalized teaching methods and students cannot be taught only what they desire. Furthermore, not all subjects or topics can be taught only with hands-on activities or with challenging ways of learning. Another thing to mention is that we should not base all our teaching in ICT and technology. These are only some of the means that a teacher can use. To sum up, there is a great need to reform the educational system, but we cannot reject all these parameters that have worked well in the past.

Thoughts of other participants:

Cecilia G, Italy

I've been teaching for 11 years and I notice that  the more years passes throug, the more is  difficult to chatch the attention of pupils for more than 15 minutes. How should I teach them? What do I have to teach? I don't know if Sir Ken Robinson is right or wrong. I know pupils are losing their connection with the "real world" (i.e. the current education system).

Manolis/Crete/Greece

It isn't easy to create an ideal plan for Education! There are many factors to be considered! So I think it is not a balck and white prossecc! School education firstly create correct and well-behaved people with open mind and the right sense of fair and justice and secondly give them the neccessary tools to find a job! Yes the education sytem must be flexible! But we have to wait and see how it will work, assess it and re-arrange it!

Athanasios, Greece

I think there is no strongly agree or disagree. On one hand Sir Ken Robinson is right saying that our educational system has to focus on real life problems and that should develop critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and problem solving skills to our students. On the other hand before that, we should focus on activities that promote solidarity, open minded thinking helping each other with an acceptable behaviour with equity and fairness between them. These are the necessary skills to achive things described by Sir Robinson.

MIrela-Romania

I partial agree with Sir Ken Robinson. First of all if we think that medicine can solve behavior problems, we're wrong.I think people usualy exagerate the interpretation of children behavior. We should take into consideration the stages of child's personality development, as Piaget said.(No, Piaget is not obsolete). Try to understand the child's changing and emerging growth, and development, give him the chance to have a an ordinary childhood , enhance the family role and care ,let the positive values to lead the life ,give them great principles of a good living(peace, goodness, loyalty,justice, truth,compassion, mercy etc) and he will grow a good person. I agree that our schools are somehow timeless.But reforming school means reforming the pedagogical paradigm, reform de methodes, the curriculae, the assesment and that is in our hands.

1.3 Create a timeline of STEM inventions

Create a timeline of STEM inventions in your country and share it on the Padlet below. If you wish, you can use this template (click here to download the template), or you can use any other tool you want.

PADLET

My contribution: