Living Green With STEAM: Sustainability Activities in Elementary Classrooms

Purpose & objective

The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how to leverage simple makerspace tools and activities in order to provide authentic project learning experiences for students that classroom teachers can easily manage. Using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal: Sustainable Cities and Communities as a content thread, the projects shared allow students to investigate current sustainability issues like climate change and energy conservation. The hands-on experience in the session will guide participants to build a solar circuit to light up an LED bulb inside a house model.

Outline

Intro to the UN’s Sustainble Development Goals and the call for sustainable education in the classroom - 5 mins.
Sustainable Cities Class Project Overview and ISTE Standards connections - 10 mins.
Solar Circuit / Solar House building activity - 35 mins.
Wrap-up participant share and Q&A - 10 mins.

Supporting research

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Burbules, Nicholas C., et al. “Five trends of Education and Technology in a sustainable future.” Geography and Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 2, 25 May 2020, pp. 93–97, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2020.05.001.

Bertrand, Marja G., and Immaculate K. Namukasa. “Steam education: Student learning and transferable skills.” Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, vol. 13, no. 1, 24 June 2020, pp. 43–56, https://doi.org/10.1108/jrit-01-2020-0003.

Maslyk, J. STEAM Makers: Fostering Creativity and Innovation in the Elementary Classroom. 1st ed., Corwin, 2016.

Taylor, Neil, et al, editors. Educating for Sustainability in Primary Schools Teaching for the Future. Sense Publishers, 2015.