ABSTRACT

STEM education has become a global priority as governments realise that there are important economic benefits if students engage in this interdisciplinary curriculum area. Less prominence has been given to the community benefits that STEM education can bring and even less attention has been given to the potential for children’s learning of STEM to increase adults’ understanding of environmental issues.Purpose: This study examined how an interdisciplinary STEM education unit of work was implemented in a primary school to educate children’s families and the school community about a little known but significant issue: the plight of honey bees.Sample: The paper reports on two primary school teachers and their classes who were engaging in a STEM unit of work. The children were aged nine and ten years old and the school was in a metropolitan location. The unit of work being taught focussed on creating an education game to highlight the importance of honey bees.Design and methods: Using a case study design multiple sources of data were collected including video, semi structured interviews, and work samples over the course of eight lessons. The data analysis involved an iterative model of video analysis integrated with analysis of student games and community interviews.

Results: The multiple sources of data suggested that the extended learning module was able to support the development of student understanding of the plight of honey bees and that children were able to transform their learning into board games that enabled the children to inform and inspire the local community.

Conclusion: These findings offer insights into how children can transform their learning into a resource and then can use this resource to educate a school community about a complex and significant environmental issue.

摘要

STEM教育已成为全球优先事项，因为各国政府意识到，如果学生从事这一跨学科课程领域，将会带来重要的经济利益。对STEM教育可以带来的社区利益的重视程度降低了，对儿童学习STEM的潜力提高了成年人的认识的程度也得到了越来越少的关注。目的：本研究探讨了如何在小学中实施跨学科的STEM教育工作单元，以教育儿童家庭和学校社区一个鲜为人知但重要的问题：蜜蜂的困境。样本：该论文报告了两名从事STEM工作单元的小学教师及其班级。孩子们分别为九岁和十岁，学校在大都市中。所教授的工作单元重点在于创建教育游戏，以突出蜜蜂的重要性。设计和方法：使用案例研究设计，在八堂课的过程中收集了多种数据源，包括视频，半结构化访谈和工作样本。数据分析涉及视频分析的迭代模型，该模型与对学生游戏和社区访谈的分析相集成。

结果：多种数据来源表明，扩展学习模块能够支持学生发展对蜜蜂困境的理解，孩子们能够将其学习转变为棋盘游戏，从而使孩子们能够启发和启发当地人。社区。

结论：这些发现提供了有关儿童如何将他们的学习转变为一种资源，然后可以使用这种资源来教育学校社区有关复杂而重大的环境问题的见解。