Our Liceo Scientifico is a selective school which offers a rich and varied, but demanding curriculum, by many students and teachers perceived as too focused on theory. The number of students in difficulty with scientific subjects – maths, physics, science – is increasing, with an increment of poor results and failures. The awareness of a necessity for change in teaching methodology has led us to join an Erasmus + KA2 project focusing on “Playing and Acting Learning towards Science”, in the belief that a more stimulating and engaging approach may persuade students to choose scientific careers. That project also marked the beginning of our collaboration with Sir Joseph Williamson’s mathematical school. This project goes along similar lines, inasmuch as it aims at stressing the importance of science, and in particular mathematical models, to interpret reality and make choices which will shape our destinies. In this case, the chosen topic, nowadays so relevant, of renewable energies will require a STEM-based approach, that is a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary perspective encompassing science, technology, engineering and maths. During their course of study, our students do not address the energetic problem in a systematic way, neither during the courses of physics nor in those of natural sciences. Therefore it will be necessary to plan a specific learning path that gives the students both the theoretical fundamentals to the problem and an idea about the possibile existing alternatives. The energy problem needs to be analysed from different points of view: -students will investigate the economic and political aspects of the problem under the guidance of the law teacher of our school; -maths and physics teachers will teach some mathematical modelling to explain real situations: for example they will show how sequences, exponential and logarithmic functions, conic sections, parabolas, hyperbolas, travelling waves are relevant in the field of renewable energies; -they will also teach the ropes of Python programming language to students in order to enable them to build an app to study energy transformation; -to address the scientific and technological aspects we will take advantage of the collaboration of external experts, for example university professors of the DIME University of Genoa and researchers of IIT; -to do some hands-on experiences in the lab, students will make a Grätzel cell under the guidance of science teachers. In carrying out the project we will always try to use a problem solving approach, learning from our English partner school, which has a long experience in teaching methods focused first and foremost on practice; plus it is not new to the topic of renewable energies, having already dealt with it in a previous Erasmus + KA2 project. In studying renewables with this STEM approach, students will get scientific knowledge which is not usually included in the curriculum. In addition, they will boost their English thanks to the interaction with native speakers, thus profiting from the most real CLIL experience they could expect. The potential longer term benefits we envisage are a more modern and effective approach to the teaching of maths, physics and science in our school, which will in turn reverberate first of all in the students’ appreciation of these subjects, then more concretely in test results, finally in a greater interest in pursuing scientific careers.
Our Liceo Scientifico is a selective school which offers a rich and varied, but demanding curriculum, which is sometimes perceived as too focused on theory by students and teachers. The number of students in difficulty with scientific subjects – maths, physics, science – is high, with increasing poor results and failures. The awareness of a necessity for change in teaching methodology already led us to join an Erasmus + KA2 project focusing on “Playing and Acting Learning towards Science” in 2016, in the belief that a more stimulating and engaging approach might persuade students to choose scientific careers. That project also marked the beginning of our collaboration with Sir Joseph Williamson’s mathematical school. This project was meant to go along similar lines, inasmuch as it aimed at stressing the importance of science, and in particular mathematical models, to interpret reality and make choices shaping our destinies. In this case, the chosen topic, more and more relevant nowadays, of renewable energies had to go along with a STEM-based approach, that is a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary perspective encompassing science, technology, engineering and maths. During their course of study, our students do not address the energetic problem in a systematic way, neither during the courses of physics nor in those of natural sciences. Therefore it was necessary to plan a specific learning path that would give the students both the theoretical fundamentals to the problem and an idea about the possible existing alternatives. The energy problem needed to be analysed from different points of view: -students would be asked to investigate the economic and political aspects of the problem; -maths and physics teachers would teach some mathematical modelling to explain real situations: for example they would show how sequences, exponential and logarithmic functions, conic sections, parabolas, hyperbolas, travelling waves are relevant in the field of renewable energies; -to address the scientific and technological aspects we would take advantage of the collaboration of external experts, for example university professors of the DIME University of Genoa and researchers of IIT. In carrying out the project we wanted to use a problem solving approach, learning from our English partner school, which has a long experience in teaching methods focused first and foremost on practice; plus it was not new to the topic of renewable energies, having already dealt with it in a previous Erasmus + KA2 project. In studying renewables with this STEM approach, students would get scientific knowledge which is not usually included in the curriculum. In addition, they would boost their English thanks to the interaction with native speakers, thus profiting from the most real CLIL experience they could expect. The potential longer term benefits we envisaged were a more modern and effective approach to the teaching of maths, physics and science in our school, which would in turn reverberate first of all in the students’ appreciation of these subjects, then more concretely in test results, finally in a greater interest in pursuing scientific careers.