Abstract:

The teaching of STEM disciplines is of fundamental importance in fostering in students the development of the skills needed to keep up with the challenges of an increasingly technological and rapidly changing modern society and to provide them with the tools to critically observe phenomena in the world and to deal rationally with real problems. Unfortunately, students often perceive disciplines such as mathematics and some parts of the natural sciences as complex, challenging, unengaging and far removed from their daily lives.

For this reason, it is important to identify more appealing and effective methodologies for innovative STEM teaching that foster the development of a positive attitude toward scientific disciplines, making them more accessible to all types of students. This is precisely the guiding principle behind our project, which aims to design and test interdisciplinary activities between natural sciences and mathematics using a plurality of innovative laboratory methodologies such as learning by doing, hands-on approach, object-based learning, and educational games to promote active and meaningful STEM learning in secondary school.

In this article, we describe three interdisciplinary workshop proposals and three educational games that have been developed consistent with the goals outlined in the STEM teaching guidelines, Italian and European guidelines, and the United Nations 2030 Agenda.

By combining topics related to the macro-areas of life and earth sciences with mathematical topics that often struggle to find a place in educational curricula, an attempt was made to recover concepts and skills that are neglected or not sufficiently explored with conventional teaching methods. This gave rise to the workshops:
‘A Matter... of Class’, which, using everyday objects, 'pierced polygons' and a card game, invites us to reflect on the concept of classification in mathematics and the taxonomy of living organisms;
‘Percentages Underground’, which, starting from the manipulation of various soil samples and the individual components of sand, silt and clay, aims to convey the concepts of pedogenesis, soil as a resource and soil texture, applying fractions and percentages to the relevant triangular diagram through an engaging board game;
‘Slices of Statistic’, in which different apple varieties become the protagonists, amidst historical curiosities, references to botany, genetics and anatomy, of a sensory analysis workshop that ends with the statistical analysis of the data collected through tasting, the comparison between subjective and objective through the use of specific instruments such as the refractometer and penetrometer, and a playful moment in which the students challenge each other in a team competition using statistics, the mathematical language associated with it and a good dose of creativity.

All the workshops were piloted with classes from the Italian Secondary School, and feedback was then collected from students and teachers through anonymous grade questionnaires on the activities carried out. The data obtained confirmed the achievement of our goals, as well as the validity and effectiveness of the innovative teaching methods adopted.

Keywords:

STEM, hands-on, object-based learning, educational games.