STEAM in nature and nature in STEAM

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Students need to understand why they learn about abstract notions such as formulas and definitions at school. Making this clear will help them develop critical thinking and help them connect the dots between what they learn in class and encounter in real life situations. This project will help students understand real-life uses for their learning - It will show them where science meets life, and give examples such as why would need the formula for the volume of a cube, or how to measure distance using only what you have at hand in nature.

Objectives

to stimulate critical thinking by taking the learning outside the classroom and outside the box
to increase students’ interest in STEM
help them understand the correlation between real life and abstract notions they learn
to improve communication in foreign languages and mother tongue
to motivate students to learn more about STEM by making them responsible of their own learning and that of their peers as they can teach others

Introduction of partners

Students introduce themselves by describing their favourite gadget, concept or natural phenomenon by means of a poster or a trading card (thinglink, glogster), and by sharing an avatar (Voki). Their avatar presentation should include a hint as to which poster or trading card is theirs.

Teachers do the same and then together we play match-up, matching the poster to the avatars. These are all posted on a Padlet. Each country researches for information about the other partner countries. Each partner will prepare an online Kahoot or Quizizz game, and will test their partner learning. This can be done during a videoconference where they get to see each other. Tools:thinglink, Glogster, Voki, Padlet, Kahoot, Quizizz, bighugelabs

Orientation

Brainstorming about the Five senses and what links students have observed between STEM and nature. The brainstorming is initially done nationally and then in the international groups once these are set up. According to the subject taught, each teacher can present to the students what he/she has in mind for the STEAM activities and ask for suggestions from the students. The ideas are posted on Tricider and voted on. The teacher says some of the things they can tackle to connect STEM and real life, according to what he/she is teaching.

For example:

Arts – creative writing, virtual museums, anthem for ‘definitions’, ‘theorems’
Science – experiments via trips, virtual trips, Augmented Reality; experiments, hypothesising, observing
Astronomy- observing the stars and calculating the distances – how would that be useful in real life; hypothesising about life on other planets, surviving on other planets
Biology – flaura and fauna through workshops in nature; the effects of environmental issues on different species
Technology and ICT – creating ebooks, games, coding in Scratch, esafety, useful web tool, media education
Economics – combined with natural sciences for example – reducing costs through alternative energy, reusing, reducing
Health – bio food
Geography and Geology – trips, Skype Classroom with experts, meetings with National Geographic experts, Google Earth
Languages – specific scientific terminology
Literature – texts about nature, natural phenomena, myths and legends (myth busters for kids); critical thinking and problem solving in science fiction films (how much of it is really true – example, The Martian)
Drama – creating films and plays to explain how certain STEM notions are used in real life
Maths – Fibonacci’s series in nature; real-life math
Physics – the physics behind the senses (why do we hear something, how do we perceive things so on). PE – healthy body (flashmobs, cross competitions, what happens in our body when we do sports
History – historical events and scientific discoveries

Communication

Weekly activities are organised in each partner class, so students can communicate with their teachers and address the problems they have encountered In monthly virtual meetings (transnational) – students in their transnational teams present their work and accept feedback. Feedback is provided via comments on their work on the discussion boards on the TwinSpace, via small surveys or by using Voicethread. Voicethread allows each piece of work to quickly presented , using images and voice. Partners can comment, ask questions, and create collaborative, interactive lessons that can be transferred to any school. Those students who feel confident enough can become teachers for other students or teachers. They can use their work to showcase or teach a particular STEM topic via a small presentation or interactive Q&A session. In time, even the shyest should be confident enough to do so. These small workshops held by students can take place during videoconferences too and students from both participating countries can jointly present the workshop on a particular topic. For example one can do the presentations while the other can design an evaluation game. These lessons can then be translated into their native language and used with other students in the schools or with parents . -TwinSpace Tools: Smilebox, Voicethread, docs google. Chats and forums on the TwinSpace

Collaboration

A Padlet is created with three sections: senses and steam, nature and steam, and senses and nature. Transnational teams will be selected using wheeldecide. They will identify similarities and differences between STEAM and nature and the relationship between STEAM and real life, which will give their learning experience meaning and ground it in reality. In transnational teams, they will co-create artefacts, designing something that would exemplify a STEM concept you would find in nature. They will add explanations, a small demonstration. An example could be using red cabbage juice as PH indicator. What other substances you have in your kitchen can be used for the same purpose? The answers could vary from beet juice to rose or geranium petals, turmeric. The 1st semester will be dedicated to the 5 senses and nature The 2nd semester will be dedicated to nature and STEM. They will experiment, hypothesise, draw conclusions and present their creations to the other teams/visitors/parents. They will work on Online whiteboard and collaboration platforms such as Miro (former Realtimeboard) or Popplet/Prezi and brainstorm ideas during chats on the TwinSpace or using meetingwords if they can’t all be online at the same time. They will organise online meetings or events to present what they created.

They can work together to create etwinning STEAM corners in their class/school to showcase the results of their collaboration in transnational teams (songs, poems, a programme, a play, an app, a game, a boardgame, a Minecraft map, paintings in an online virtual museum – such as Artsteps, a Scratch game and so on.

They can also present using acting and actions - creating Frozen picture tableaux, playback theatre,. They can organise science fairs or booths for parents, visitors, local community, which offer experiments with instruction manuals and real life applications, use QR codes, posters, take part in Q&A sessions.

Together with the teachers they can take part in events on the TwinSpace where they can present their artefacts or their collaborative work. Tools : Padlet, ArtSteps, Scratch, Miro, Wheeldecide, Popplet, Prezi, Meetingwords

Evaluation & Assessment

The teachers will provide:

surveys (knowledge and impact), collecting thoughts and impressions on Padlet, masks (attitudes), products/creations (to evaluate skills), self-evaluation with rubrics designed together with the students
interviews, for example the senses team interviews the STEAM team; before and after thoughts on the learning process

Follow up

Documentation

Saving all evidence of students work in the TwinSpace. Clear explanation and presentation of the activities done All the activities will have separate pages according to the category they fall into. The action plan and schedule will be available as a shared online document posted on the TwinSpace so we can all see what tasks we have to finish and when. The students will offer suggestions and feedback, propose new activities or tools if possible (Tricider). Each activity will be preceded by a brief explanation and description of the goals, tools used, participants’ opinions.

Dissemination

Activities to present the project and the work done in the school, parents, local community, teachers’ community. For example: Students create an exhibition with their paintings. Print their work and add QR codes with information about each painting. They invite the local community to the exhibition and they teach them how to use their mobiles and learn more about the work they have done. The partner classes can also: - send newsletters - write articles in the school magazine or posts on the school’s website -create ebook of tools, methods (Joomag) - participate in competitions - organize creative writing competition – all the submissions will be included in an ebook and offered to all schools as a free material posted online; the winners of the competition as voted by the etwinning community will be announced during a live event -prepare presentations and workshops for other schools, during teacher and parent meetings and to other project partners in other projects the schools may have. For example when presenting the school to future or present partners, snippets of the collaborative products created can be showcased by the students involved (if still in those schools, if not students who benefitted from the workshops during the project). Every year, teachers go to the annual teacher meetings and the teachers involved can present the work designed by the students and share the links, both to the materials and to the tricider used to collect feedback or comments. Tools: Joomag, Tricider, Wooclap

Additional information

Age from:

12
Age to:

15
Difficulty:

Intermediate

STEAM in nature and nature in STEAM

Additional information

School subjects

Vocational subjects

Key competences