Tag Archives: #STEM

DOĞANIN ŞARKISI (STEM ETKİNLİĞİ)

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Music is an indispensable phenomenon in human life. Children need to learn, experiment and use sounds obtained from all kinds of materials. Their melodic concepts are different from those of adults. Preschoolers are primarily interested in sounds and wonder what happened. They tend to learn better in a rich and stimulating environment. The most important factor for the environment is the teacher.

For this reason, we decided to make our own musical instruments in my school to give more musical education to children and to develop their sense of music.

3 and 5-year-old students who took part in the project worked between April 1 and April 30.Our aim is to give children a sense of music and rhythm. To love music. Now they use their creativity to create musical instruments from materials.

How we decided?

Since we do not have a music classroom due to school facilities, we decided to create a music corner in the garden with the children.First, what is a musical instrument, what is it for, what types are there, how to make handmade sample instruments, what materials we will need, what are the shapes of musical instruments, etc. We started by researching its features.For this, we received support from websites such as Youtube, Pinterest and Google. Pictures were shown and videos were watched.Of course, while creating this music corner, we took care to use nature’s own materials. We used all kinds of materials that could be used for music, also using recyclable materials.

Activity 1:

And first we went out to the garden to explore.

The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY–
The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY

Activity 2:

While examining the different musical instruments in the classroom after the different objects we found, “Should we make maracas, too?” When I said, they started thinking how to do it.Considering the use of waste materials, they thought that empty toilet paper, play dough box, empty bottles were suitable for maracas in the classroom. Children gave up plastics and decided to use maracas from rolled cardboard. They threw out small objects they found inside to make a sound. (lentils, stones, chickpeas, macaroni) And they decorated.

The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY

Activity 3:

A few days later, as one of the children entered the classroom, he had a walnut in his hand. To eat it, he had to break it first. He started hitting the walnuts together to break them.Just at that moment, I said, “Look how the walnuts sound,” to get their attention. When I said “can it be made of walnut, do you think a musical instrument”, we decided to try it.They watched a video of making a musical instrument from a walnut on Youtube. After getting the materials, they got to work.

The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY

We brought all the musical instruments they made to the garden and started to create our corner with materials such as pots, pans, wooden spoons and cones that they brought from the house.

The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY

We got to work by tying a rope to the ends of the spoons and ladles. First we decided what to put where. It was started to hang on metal with legs one by one by passing through the handles of the pot.

The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY

and the final state of our garden…

The picture belongs and was provided by the Author – Attribute CC-BY

Visit our school website. https://yesilovaanaokulu.meb.k12.tr/tema/index.php

Good Health and Well-being with the help of Artificial Intelligence and the BBC Micro: bit

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Introduction

School: 2nd Primary School of Nea Erythraia, Athens, Greece
Teacher: Georgia Lascaris
Class: 6th Grade (11 to 12 years old)
Implementation period: March 2021

Goal: Solving real world problems for Sustainable Development Goal 3 Good Health and Well-being” with the help of technology: coding, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence – Machine Learning

Abstract

New technologies as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and smart mobile devices are already influencing and shaping every aspect of our daily lives and can be a powerful ally to help us with real global problems.
Through the European eTwinning program “Micro Circuits for Mega Solutions”, with the participation of schools from Greece, Croatia, Turkey, Spain and Latvia, the 6rth grade students from the Primary School of Nea Erythraia, Athens, Greece, are introduced to the basic concepts of:
a) coding using BBC Micro: bit (palm-sized computer )
b) The Internet of Things (IoT) 
c) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
d) 17 Sustainable Development Goals

Through fun, collaborative and interdisciplinary activities, they dreamed, designed, coded, and implemented applications to simulate smart devices that could be a solution to real global problems and improve people’s daily lives. By understanding the way those new technologies work, they could realize their possibilities as well as their limits and how to use them for good (Technology for Good).

After schools’ closure because of the Covi19 pandemic, these activities were implemented through synchronous  and asynchronous distance education (Webex, eclass) using online tools such as breakout rooms, micro: bit MakeCode platform, Web2.0 simulators…. 

In March, all our activities were based on Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Wellness as the Covid19 pandemic reminded us in the harshest way of how valuable good physical and mental health are.

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Design Your Own Shoes

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Teachers: Deniz Cemre Cimbar & Özgün Pehlevan

Age: 13-14 years old

Duration: February, 2021, 2 weeks, 4 lessons per week

The aim of this STEM project is to discover that solid pressure is related to force and surface area with the connection to everyday life. For this purpose, students were asked to design their own shoes by following the STEM steps. The study was applied in the distance education process due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the students had to work individually.

Throughout the entire study, the engineering design process is applied to identify, explore, design, create, test, and rearrange the problem. The general flow of the study is as follows:

  1. Identify the Problem: In this step, students investigate the question of “why do we wear shoes?”. By obtaining information about the history of shoes from the past to the present, they reach the knowledge of how the use of shoes has changed with the developing technology.
  2. Explore: In this section, students investigate the general structure of the foot, what is important when designing a shoe, and the features that should be in a good shoe. The purpose of this step is to obtain information about what to pay attention to and how to design the shoes they will design.
  3. Design: Students draw a design for a winter shoe that covers the feet. The limitations determined for this purpose are as follows:
The picture is the author’s own –(Attribution CC-BY)
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