Scientix Archives - The 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign

STEM Education vs Traditional Education

Author: Alketa Barjami

For the 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign, I organised few activities. They are listed and described below.

“STEM Education vs Traditional Education”

Type of activity or action: Training session
Date: 20/04/2020 – 24/04/2020

STEM helps to turn new ideas into better education. Timely education during PANDEMIC showed that STEM in home conditions, with the presence of the Internet, brought solutions to online education. Traditional education allows the student to receive formal education and teaches to focus on the topic in question.

Resource: SCIENTIX WEBINAR: QUIRKY IDEAS TO PIQUE AND PROMOTE STUDENT INTEREST IN STEM CLASSROOMS.

For me, it was the first time I designed and implemented a lesson plan on Scientix, but it was not difficult … I could enrich it over time. The difficulty for students was that it was the first time they used online tools to build online puzzles. We could apply it for some more projects this month because we needed to learn online more…

Let’s code together at home

Author: Selçuk Yusuf Arslan

Online Coding Training? Why not?

The pandemic process has been a process when education systems are rapidly taking action all over the world. Countries quickly began distance education activities. We were encouraged to organise activities for the 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign online, using SOMR (Scientix Online Meeting Room). In this process, I decided to do an online event with the Ministry of Education of Muğla Province. I was asked if I could do STEM applications by teaching coding online. Even it sounds good, it was interesting to do a “hands-on” activity online. Why not? We could do it.

Can simulators be used for this?

I started planning it right away. I could use simulators in distance education to make robotic coding with teachers. I chose micro:bit. There was a few advantages of BBC’s intiative and popular microcomputer micro:bits;

I could use the simulator thanks to Microsoft Makecode. Teachers participating in distance education could also get a chance to try, even if they didn’t have micro:bit.
Micro:bit is a good choice, especially for teachers who do not have previous coding experience because they are block-based.
By posting a video on YouTube, many teachers could watch me and get a chance to try, even ask questions online. I could also reach a lot of teachers offline; not only online but also offline after the broadcast.
At the end of the training, I could encourage teachers by making a simple STEM application.

BUILD YOUR OWN WEATHER STATION

Author: Semih ESENDEMİR

Within the scope of the “STEM Discovery Campaign 2020” organized by Scientix in European countries, I, as a science teacher at Emine Emir Şahbaz Science and Art Center, organized an online STEM activity “Build your own weather station” with my students being 9 to 12 years old between 13 – 19 of April, 2020.

My aim in organizing this activity was to develop scientific and engineering process skills by directing them to research, questioning, and design with the online STEM event that I organized during these difficult times when I am separated from my students. To achieve this goal, I dealt with the weather events that concern us in our daily lives. I thought to develop Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math skills by having my students’ design tools to measure weather events like a scientist, mathematically express and predict their measurements. Based on these ideas, I decided to implement the learning scenario called “The weather in our town!”

The “Unbreakable Egg” Experiment

Author: Bekir Cevizci

The first activity we planned as a school within the scope of 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign Activities was “Unbreakable Egg” Experiment. We made the announcement of our activity to all our students. We received feedback from students with the Google form we created. 137 of our 259 students made a return that they wanted to participate in this activity. We divided 137 students into groups according to their ages. We carried out the first activity with 32 students in the 9-11 age group. By dividing these 32 students into 8 subgroups of 4 people, we enabled them to work together.

Family STEM Night

Why this activity

I organize STEM-themed family nights in our school once a month. As a Scientix Ambassador, these meetings become an excellent way to spread STEM education model to a wider community. Since the STEM Discovery Week takes place in April, I see this as a great opportunity to combine our Family STEM Night activity for April with STEM Discovery Week 2019. In our Family STEM Nights students, teachers and parents meet and they all work together to accomplish the challenges specifically designed for that night. For the STEM Discovery Week 2019, our main scope is to learn about the physics, math, engineering, architecture, design and technology behind geodesic domes and create one as a team..

Introduction

Our activity began with a short video to attract the participants’ attention. Then we discussed about different roof and ceiling structures through the history such as ancient Greek temples (Parthenon), Egyptian and Mayan pyramids. With this approach we learned more about why the domes are more practical, beneficial, convenient and functional. Many architects and engineers throughout the history like Da Vinci, Mimar Sinan and Buckminster Fuller tried to build large domes to demonstrate their immortal masterpieces. We also examined world-wide famous domes from history to our days like Hagia Sophia, Astrodome, Climatron. (here is the link for the slides)