General Info
The project comes from didactic experiences that have fascinated students of the First Grade Secondary School on safety issues. Few years earlier many students worked at the creation of the Institute's logo "A school to wear" thinking at the school as a sort of cloth that protects. This time, deepening the study of natural phenomena such as earthquakes and atmospheric events, the students addressed the themes of safety by analyzing the critical issues of their school where they spend a lot of time with their classmates.
Starting from a series of questions (How many seismic movements occur in Italy? What type are they? How anti-seismic are our schools? How to make schools safer? Which safety systems can save people's lives?) oriented towards the creation of an active model of the school equipped with an acoustic and visual alarm system to create. The students have experimented and combined with each other, interesting workshops:
- Coding with Scratch,
- Robotics with lego WeDo,
- Electronics with elements of LittleBits
- Engineering through the construction of models
The project, in line with Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda "Quality education", is the result of a path that begins even in primary school with fun STEAM workshops and problem solving activities. Led by a group of teachers in curricular and extra-curricular activities, it was carried out in a cooperative way: each student played their role, putting their own attitudes into play, and was designed to involve a fair participation of girls and boys also in optics of offering opportunities to discover one's vocations.
The school presented the project at the "Digital School Award": a competition of innovative projects for content and adopted technologies. The work of the students has passed the provincial and regional selection as the best project for the category Secondary School of First Degree. In the national semifinal, for the same category, they qualified in sixth place.
Audience and Educational Framework
Educational Details
- First step
- Study, in curricular paths, of atmospheric phenomena and earthquakes. Study of building constructions and innovative anti-seismic alternatives
- Second step
- The construction of two prototypes of buildings: one with a stable base and the other with an anti-seismic base made up of balls that absorb the movement and effects of seismic waves.
- Thanks to a small Lego We.Do robot controlled with a visual programming code in blocks, written with scratch and connected in Bluetooth, it was possible to simulate a seismic event and observe its effect on the two buildings.
- Third step
- It was consequential to reflect on how to evacuate the school quickly and safely. So a model of the school was made with easily workable materials (polystyrene, colored canvas, pieces of transparent plastic for the windows,...). The school building was reproduced as faithfully as possible with the classrooms and corridors as escape routes, the courtyard and the garden areas as gathering points, imagine it as a comfortable and safe place where spend time whit classmates.
- Finally the alarm system was inserted under the base of the building: an acoustic and visual alarm system was imagined to guide students, teachers and other people to escape routes.
- With the electronic elements of Littlebits, students created a network of cables under the model of their school consisting of lights and a sound system operated by a button.
- Fourth step
- After the first two phases it was necessary to think of an instrument that could perceive the seismic waves in order to evacuate the school promptly. Thus the idea was born: to transform a Lego WeDo inclination sensor into a vibration sensor such as to be able to perceive the movements caused by a possible seismic shock.
- Once the sensor inclination variables (up, down, right, left) have been identified through the Scratch visual block code, a program has been created that cyclically reads the change in inclination and starts the Lego WeDo engine which acts on the alarm system by pressing the button.
Through laboratory activities, students acquire a cognitive flexibility that allows them to orient themselves in unpredictable and changing contexts, becoming "good thinkers", effective problem solvers.
Problem solving, with a metacognitive value, is a training ground for self-regulation skills: pupils learn to break down the macro-problem, to monitor processes, to evaluate the degrees of utility, necessity, effectiveness, convenience, appropriateness of the strategies identified up to to find the solution. In addition, students learn to compare problem-solving strategies and procedures within the group, and to transfer what they have experienced into lifelong learning.
Through these experiences the student is able to:
- develop problem solving skills;
- develop IT skills (metacompetences) in the training process;
- develop algorithmic thinking as a general strategy for dealing with problems;
- explain the procedure followed, also in writing, while maintaining control over both the resolution process and the results;
- compare different procedures and produce formalizations that allow him to move from a specific problem to a class of problems;
- support one's convictions, bringing appropriate examples and counterexamples and using concatenations of affirmations; agrees to change opinion by recognizing the logical consequences of a correct argument;
- find satisfaction in learning and in demonstrating knowledge
Implementation
(where and how the practice was implemented)
The use of electronic and robotics educational kits, temperature sensors, fans, sirens, bells, elements on wheels, assembled together with logic and creativity, has allowed the students to operate simulations and identify technological solutions to real problems.
Through learning by doing and teamwork, the students increased their spirit of initiative, mutual respect, putting into practice problem solving strategies towards the development of computational thinking.
The proposed topics therefore offered "young engineers" opportunities for comparison and broader perspective in creative workshops where their ideas came to life; they increase also their social and cultural skills.
The evaluation of the whole project is based on the following criteria:
- value and quality of the digital / technological content presented, in terms of vision, strategy, use of innovative digital technologies
- significance of the impact produced on students' skills and integration into the school curriculum
- quality and completeness of the presentation
For the student's learning course the evaluation is based on the following descriptors:
The student ...
- recognizes and solves problems in different contexts by evaluating information and their consistency.
- explains the procedure followed, also in written form, maintaining control over both the resolution process and the results.
- he compares different procedures and produces formalizations that allow him to move from a specific problem to a class of problems.
- supports their own beliefs, bringing appropriate examples and counterexamples and using concatenations of affirmations; agrees to change his mind by recognizing the logical consequences of a correct argument.
- it orientates itself with probability assessments.
- develops positive attitudes towards STEAM disciplines
- responsibly assumes attitudes, roles and behaviors of active and community participation
Educational material/resources (file/URL) accompanying the practice
Italian
Italian
The students participated in the second selection dedicated to the "Digital School Award", passing the first regional selection as the best project for the First Grade Secondary School category.
Italian
At the end the students participated in the national selection dedicated to the "Digital School Award", getting the sixth place for the First Grade Secondary School category.
Italian
Video presentation
The School and their students participated in a selection dedicated to the "Digital School Award", passing the first provincial selection as the best project for the First Grade Secondary School category.