STEM for sustainability and digital citizenship – Building Meteorology Station
Our children need to develop their creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving skills and use 21st-century skills correctly. I believe it is time to encourage every stakeholder in the education field to organize activities that will raise awareness about these issues by highlighting the relevant skills students will need in their near future. I think that developing science literacy should be done through STEM education.
Lesson scenarios, enriched with STEM activities, strengthen both peer communication and self-control, collaborative work, and critical thinking skills. Especially it helps those children whose peer communication is interrupted due to the pandemic and who feel isolated. My goal is to increase the interest of children in STEM fields and to provide solutions that can manage crises in daily life problems.
Building Meteorology Station
Students set up their meteorology stations by preparing a course scenario suitable for the 5E model. We started this assignment with the question: ‘What can happen in a weather station?’ I started a discussion and the students wrote down their ideas. After collecting the ideas, they watched the interaction videos I posted. They were divided into groups using designed tools such as barometer, thermometer, wind meter, and rain gauge.
While designing these tools, they met and discussed them in groups. In these meetings, they internalized many values such as teamwork, scientific research processes, internet ethics. Besides, it stimulated peer communication, which affected their emotional development.
As a result of the group discussions, they showed the tools they would design with drawings. They drew attention to recycling using waste materials and designed their tools. They placed these tools in their home garden and collected weekly data. Based on these data, they created a weekly weather report chart. They interpreted the chart and then explained all these works in a synchronous lesson. In line with the data obtained, they observed that seasonal conditions were above normal and they referred to the importance of climate change. They predicted that the ecosystem, which was damaged by the changing climate conditions, may have triggered the COVID-19 process with environmental problems. Because, if there was no climate change, everything in nature would be in balance.
About the author: Seçil Gedik Doganer is a teacher in a primary school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Konya. She is also a part of the Konya eTwinning team, and an Apple Teacher, class dojo mentor, and a tale teacher.
Tags: barometer, climate, ecosystem, meteorology, peer communication, rain, STEM, sustainability, thermometer, weather, wind
Congratulations. Seçil Teacher’s students so lucky. They are very suitable environment for STEM. Because Seçil Teacher loves to research and improve herself. Best regards 🙏🏼
Hello Seçil teacher, you have raised awareness by mentioning a subject that needs more attention. Your content and presentation are very successful. Congratulations.
Great work. Congrats Seçil teacher. Good topics.👏👏👏
Congratulations, teacher. Your work with your students is very successful. He also offered us ideas at the point of creating awareness.Thanks.
Thank you for showing how diverse and beneficial the stem activities will be in elementary school too, my teacher, congratulations.
Thank you very much ,for all of your minds
Thanks for the students who solved the problems, not the audience, Seçil teacher. ✨👍