Author: Voinea Axinte Costica

On March 3, 2020, we conducted the planned activity that was recorded and broadcasted live on the official Facebook page of the school. It was a successful and captivating activity for all participants successfully marking STEM.

Mathematics teacher Voinea-Axinte Costica, physics teacher Burduja Dinu and professor of chemistry Surdu Lucian conducted an activity with the main objective of motivating the students of the ninth and tenth grades to study the concepts of mathematics, physics or chemistry starting from a pretext common to all of us – the starry sky – ASTRONOMY. Use of the concept of “cosmic space”, as a creative context, to stimulate the motivation of the students for the knowledge and study of STEM disciplines.

The activity held on March 3, 2020, was one of the numerous online training sessions organized within the curricular project “Mathematics and Astronomy”, which is supported by the mentor delegated through the Einstein Schools program, Dr. Diana Dragomir from the MIT Kavli Institute and the University of New Mexico, USA. The general theme is represented by Exoplanets and the theme of today’s action was “Exoplanet Chemistry”.

The materials and resources that helped us to implement the activity were: Presentation of Mrs. Diana Dragomir from the MIT Kavli Institute and the University of New Mexico, USA, additional documentation lessons on this topic together with the students made interdisciplinarly combining knowledge of mathematics, physics or chemistry. I used laptop, video projector, internet connection of the school.

We involved the students in the creation of interdisciplinary documentation sheets combining the knowledge of mathematics, physics or chemistry, using the concept of “cosmic space”, to deepen the study of exoplanets, as a stimulating creative context. I filmed the whole thing and uploaded it live on Facebook.

The pedagogical value of the activity pursued to make connections between the concepts studied in the disciplines mathematics, physics, chemistry and to recognize their usefulness in the study of the universe, training and developing the ability to communicate using the specific scientific language, developing the interest and motivation for the interdisciplinary study of the notions, to develop students creative abilities to organize information, the critical spirit, to develop students responsible attitudes towards society and towards themselves. Carry out astronomical observations, measurements and experiments. To use the information available in virtual libraries, on the Internet, educational software, astronomical atlases, star maps. Have fun with the team activity.

This activity format should be used by any STEM teacher in their approach, with their students.

Here is the link to the event page: Chimia Exoplanetelor