Abstract:

Environmental protection and its utilization, taking account of sustainable development, becomes a necessity in today’s rapidly changing era. In the city’s surrounding environment there are unexploited resources which could be integrated in the citizens’ everyday life, within the frameworks of sustainability and with respect to their existence and their characteristics, improving everyone’s quality of life. Students take up an active role and make proposals of utilization and sustainability, by implementing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) methodology. Distance learning, online and offline, combined with experiential learning, contribute to knowledge structure.

The goal of this research is to present the development of a project, by means of blended learning and co-teaching, where distance learning is carried out online and offline, during the pandemic. The basic question is the way in which students implement STEM methodology and robotics, in blended learning. Having stimuli from their environment, we see the students’ proposals for utilization, how they actualize them within the frameworks of sustainability, urban accessibility and inclusion and the methodology of research that they implement.

The action was carried out by students of E Class and students who attended an Integration Class (B-F Class) of a Greek Primary school, in the morning zone and it regarded the students’ exposure to STEM methodology and the concurrent use of the computer and its involvement in experiential learning. The access, the study and the processing of the material was possible via the computer, through online and offline distance learning, out of school but also in school, when students returned to it , after the ‘lockdown’ period. The learners worked individually or in groups, depending on the assignment they had to work on and they applied research on the field, quality and quantity research and kept a project calendar, while making use of Physical Sciences and Robotics.

The evaluation of the action and the collection of data on the computer and the collaborative applications, as well as the experiential actions showed that the students co-operated, they gained knowledge and the experience of the methodology of research, they took pleasure in creativity and robotics and their critical thinking was encouraged through activation and STEM methodology.

Keywords:

STEM, co-teaching, social integration, blended learning, project.