S.T.E.A.M.
Waste Management and S.T.E.A.M
Essential Questions:
How does technology innovates waste management?
How do we teach the importance of waste management through S.T.E.A.M?
How to aspire a zero waste global community using technology?
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What is S.T.E.A.M?
S.T.E.A.M is an approach of learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking.
Project Theme and Goals:
This waste management project aims to educate pupils from primary schools and their teachers in how to save our environment, be responsible in using, consuming and recycling what they have at home and in school items. The project will inform students about the environmental impact of waste management and how to develop didactical activities for reducing the pollution. Moreover, the project will promote good practices for reducing waste disposal in general in order to promote a good plastics management system for elementary schools, primary schools and kindergartens.
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Technology:
Under the S.T.E.A.M section, the technology part of S.T.E.A.M, Students will learn about available technology and machines used for to manage waste, for example diggers and machines used landfills
Source of information will include watching YouTube videos, reading short articles and doing their own research. Students need to make a presentation of how technology is used for waste management. This is going to be a group assignment.
Instructions for the presentation :
Students can choose to focus on one area of waste management, for example, plastic pollution, air pollution, water pollution, etc.
After watching videos in the classroom about waste management, and further do their own research according to each group's focus area of waste management. Students will prepare presentation slide with pictures and short videos that will explain the global problem caused by waste waste, suggest ways to control pollution/ waste and explain, landfills, machines for reusing plastics how technology is used to control waste.
Videos includes on the presentation must be less 3-5 minutes all together.
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Problem-Solving:
The main of this project is to get student about global problems concerning consumption of pand pollution and work together to come up with solutions.
Example of solutions students will be expected to provide are solutions to the landfills/dumping site: Places where trash is thrown away, also highlight the fact that, before landfill were able to decompose and absorb waste back into soil, nowadays landfills are full of objects that do not break down like plastics and appliances that cannot be decomposed to the soil. That causes pollution.
Growth-mindset:
Students are expected to face challenges when doing the handcraft project using plastic bottles and when preparing for the presentation with solutions to plastic pollution.
At the end of the project, there will be classroom discussion, which will be unpacking all the challenges students faced in preparing and having the presentation as well as designing handcraft.
The challenges they will face during this project, will allow them to incorporate a growth-mindset when they reflect on challenges they faced to accomplish the project.
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21st Century skills:
Communication and Collaboration:
Students will work in pairs individually to create and design the handcraft using recyclable material like plastic or cupboard. . For the presentation, students will work in groups to collaborate ideas, research global problems caused by on their area of specialty on waste management and provide solution. Each member will have to participate in the gathering process and presentation stage. They will need the collaboration skills to achieve the end goal of the project.
Critical thinking:
The goal is to promote critical thinking skills, collaboration and team work and persuasive speech, which will allow students to discuss question by themselves and try to find answers, peer-to-peer review and asking the teacher later for clarity.
For example, the teacher gives hints but not answers, which will be a student guidance tool when doing the work by themselves.
When students are preparing handcraft and presentation, they will need critical thinking and internet search to collaborate ideas and come up with informative presentation.
Internet search is not going to be the solution, but putting ideas together and finding the best way to structure their presentation.
Creativity& Innovation
When students are planning and designing handcraft, they will be required to tap on their creativity to make.
This project will allow students to bring innovate ideas in terms of saving our global environment.
Nosisa Makhathini
Waste management in schools
Introduce waste management programs from high school, universities and colleges. Waste management companies can invest in these programs through offering bursaries, scholarship and sponsoring students who are enrolling in waste management programs.
These programs can focus on educating about how to recycle and use technology to convert recycles into usable objects. For example, recycling of plastic and convert it into plastic bricks for construction and developing the cities and infrastructure. These programs offered in learning institutions can focus on which technology to use and how to upgrade the existing technology into modern technology.
In waste management, technology and engineering goes hand in hand, therefore these are the suggested ideas for technology and engineering.
Engineering, Technology: use the Engineering Design Process (EDP) to develop various ideas to tackle the waste problem. Use the EDP to create a new product to replace plastic
Prepare classroom activities that will make student understand the waste management cycle and how much waste they create themselves and work on ways to reduce and/or reuse.
Implement assignments and projects that will align with ideas can be projected onto the wider world for a real-life, such as projects that will only focus on the use recycled materials.
Another example of waste management control and or awareness is the sorting out of waste by separating trash cans into recyclables, hazardous goods, organic, paper, metal, plastic, etc.
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Advancement of technology and investing waste management machinery.
Incorporate classroom activities which will promote student's understanding of the importance of waste management. This can include integrating technology in the classroom.
Waste companies have started to invent and develop new machinery known as “digesters” which can take the waste and the biogas it produces and turn it into energy that can be used on site. Nosisa Makhathini
A great way to begin managing waste at school is creating a partnership with the school cafeteria's logistic team. Food waste would be collected by your science department and stored for observations over a period of time in a green house. Below are the following guidelines to use that are aligned with NGSS (standards):
NGSS Crosscutting Concepts:
Cause & Effect
Systems
Energy
Stability & Change
Each Group of Researchers:
Can develop a long-term experiment about the creation of compost
Can research and design a strategy for creating nutrient rich compost
Can research and design a strategy for maximizing the rate of decomposition
Can Design and put together two compost columns isolating one independent variable.
Can observe and monitor the changes over time recording qualitative and quantitative data
Oberservations & Data to collect:
The different variables: control, independent, dependent, hypothesis
Qualitative and Quantative data
Delisa