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Museums are established institutions, but they also exist in a changing world. How can we find relations between museums and STEM education? What are the dimensions of “museum education” as a discipline of pedagogy and how do innovative approaches in the teaching of modern science apply to museums? Starting from the assumption that material objects within museums are as much a part of the weave of our lives, such a question could be answered. A museum is a living space, a potential extension of the STEM classroom, as students use the knowledge they acquire at school in order to understand the importance of reports and exhibits.

As member of the writing group for educational materials in the “Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (PIOP)” within the action “Network Pausanias 2.0: from the School to the Museum”, this article presents examples of how STEM teachers could provide valuable innovative proposals for the implementation of educational teaching scenarios and worksheets for organizing educational visits, linking museums with schools.

Mathematics

Mathematical and geometrical concepts and  computational methods could be linked to the objects in each museum, which aims at fostering and exercising flexibility in the way of geometric and critical thinking is used as a tool to study the properties and justification of geometrical shapes.

• In the Silk Museum of Soufli:

Traditional dresses fill in geometric shapes, which recognize that it is divided, and its properties.

Activity: Reeling or the unwinding of the cocoon’s thread

Questions: i) The geometric shape that is forming around the wooden wheel is A. Triangle. B. Square. C. Regular Hexagon. D. Rectangle.

ii)What are the properties of the six triangles formed in geometrical shape?

iii) If we want to measure the length of thread we wrap once around the object then we have to calculate: A. At the perimeter, B. The area of, C. The length of the wood.

iv) If you know the distance between the wheel center by a top of the example D is R = 0,80m, then the length of each side is: A. Equals R B. double the R C. Sextuple with R.

Physics

• Museum of Industrial Olive-Oil Production of Lesvos

The whistle marks the start of the working factory with the sound they produce.

Activity: Based on knowledge of physics fill in the gaps with one of the words indicated in brackets, in the following statement, which describes how to create the sound:

Questions:  The …………………….. (movements, oscillations, turbulence) of the air forces create ……….. …………….. (acoustic, mechanical, water) waves which propagate in it and called sound waves. Because the air molecules move in the wave propagation direction, the sound waves are ……………………… (linear, cyclic, longitudinal , transverse) waves.

• Rooftile and Brickworks Factory Museum of Nikolaos and Spyridon Tsalapatas, in Volos (Thessaly)

Questions: i) If it starts at time t = 0 from the position A, and in time t=5min arrive to point B that the distance from A is 1000m in which time will be arrive to C that it’s distance is 2000m from the A?
ii) If the trolley reaches the plant at time t = 15 min.
How long it took from the point B to the factory?
iii) If you know the speed of the trolley is stable throughout the stroke and the formula for calculating it. Filling in the gaps in the data, which will replace the press and then to calculate the speed, moving from A to B?

Distance B from A: X = …………………

Time taken to move from A to B: t = …………… ..

Speed= …… / ……

i) The electricity is ………………………… ………….. …… charged particles.
ii) The electrical current is given by the formula ……………………
iii) The unit of electrical current is ……………..
iv) The instruments measure the electrical current called ……………….
v) Any apparatus in which a form of energy is converted into electrical called
……………………….source.

vi) The machines flown by electric current when the switch is ……………………
words

• The Environment Museum of Stymphalia

One of the basic materials of livestock exposed to the Museum is the bells.

Questions:  i) Choose the correct answer:
How it is called the movement of bells?
ii) Circle three of the following physical quantities are used to describe the oscillation:
Speed, frequency, speed, strength, width, weight, power, period, time, length.
iii) The most common practice of identifying animals from breeders is the sound of bells.
The …………………. of the air forces create mechanical waves which propagate in it and called …………. ……… waves.
iv) A farmer in the area of Lake hears the sound of the bell of at time t=20 sec. The velocity of sound is 340 m / s. Calculate the frequency and wavelength.

Article written by: Argyri Panagiota, STEM teacher, Greece. The second part of this article will be published next week.  

Tags: activities, Environment, factory, greece, industrial, mathematics, Museum, oil, physics, silk, Students