Under the guidance of the national "double reduction" policy, the task and mission of science and technology education have become more prominent. In order to enable students to acquire scientific and technological literacy through systematic training, more and more teachers have introduced the concept of STEAM education, hoping that under the influence of interdisciplinary and project system, science and technology education can be more effective. However, the development cycle of STEAM projects is often relatively long, and teachers are prone to fall into the misunderstanding of focusing on knowledge over practice, strengthening discipline integration, lacking evaluation with goals, and focusing on form and sparing connotation when designing STEAM activities. In the final analysis, it is because there is no overall view of STEAM activities. Through the practice of STEAM education, we have found that as long as we open up the closed loop of STEAM education from learning, research, creation, display to reflection, the entire STEAM education will be full of vitality, and students will also improve their scientific literacy in the complete STEAM activities.

Designing a future city that responds to climate change is a very interesting and challenging STEAM project. Students need to analyze the impact of climate change on cities and design innovative and futuristic climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies to ensure the health and safety of future urban residents. By designing the curriculum from the perspective of creating a closed-loop STEAM activity, students will have a better learning experience in the activity, generate advanced knowledge and skills, and gain new experience. The following author uses the case of Daoxianghu School in Haidian District, Beijing to illustrate the STEAM activity.

　　　　learn

　　　　Building a knowledge system for STEAM activities

Unlike traditional classrooms, the STEAM learning system is not unilaterally set by teachers, but jointly generated by teachers and students. Therefore, when designing activities, teachers should fully consider the interdisciplinary nature of STEAM activities, jump out of the knowledge and cognitive limitations of their own subjects, attract teachers from more subject areas to join the activities, and enthusiastically embrace the various novel ideas of students. Therefore, creating a learning community that connects teachers, students, teachers and students, teachers and students, schools, and even schools and experts will maximize the efficiency of STEAM learning.

When designing future urban learning activities, we first combined the interdisciplinary nature of STEAM, contacted teachers in science, technology, art, and other fields, and jointly designed a learning list from the perspective of a learning guide.

At the same time, we also used parental resources to establish contact with architectural design experts outside the school, and organized the architectural knowledge recommended by the experts in the electronic learning platform and updated it at any time to ensure that students can learn relevant knowledge of architecture at any time during the progress of the project.

Of course, this knowledge is not instilled in the students at the beginning of the project, but integrated into the whole process of future urban design and production. In order to allow students to truly become masters of learning, we have consciously preserved the link of student-generated knowledge, opened an online forum for students to discover points of interest in the process of advancing the project, and guided students to self-study. For example, when we were selecting the site of the future city, a student showed a black and white photo of a valley in the Himalayas 100 years ago. Today, 100 years later, when humans come to the same location again, they are surprised to find that the former valley has become a lake. It turns out that in the past 100 years, the temperature of the earth has continued to rise, causing the glaciers in the Himalayas to melt and form a new water source. Inspired by this event, the students were bold and innovative, and quickly thought of whether the Tianshan glacier in Xinjiang would also melt in a few years. If the glacier melts, some former deserts will also become oases. After this novel idea was born, the students thought of the ancient city of Loulan, which is a splendid and mysterious city in history. But the knowledge of Loulan ancient city is poorly understood by both students and teachers. Therefore, while exploring, the students expanded their knowledge of Loulan’s history, culture and other humanities.

　　　　research

　　　　Lay the theoretical foundation for STEAM activities

As another important activity of STEAM, research is of great significance. What we study, how we study it, and what effect we expect to achieve should be deeply considered in the activity design. The famous educator Dewey proposed a five-step method of inquiry teaching, which we combined with STEAM education practice, and gradually formed four main steps of research: setting goals, asking questions, researching materials, and forming reports.

Setting goals: teachers and students have discussed and agreed on goals around a common theme. For example, by analyzing the content of the project and combining our understanding of climate and future cities, we have formulated 4 goals: 1. Our city needs to cope with various extreme climates, such as very hot or very cold; 2. Find specific measures for each city to adapt to climate change or extreme weather; 3. Present the project in the best way within a limited time; 4. Let our design have more Chinese elements.

Ask questions: After the goal is clear, organize students to ask specific questions to facilitate further research. The questions raised by students may be imaginative or very focused. As the guide of learning activities, teachers should help students sort out and categorize the problems, and gradually combine the questions with the research content. We use online learning platforms to collect and organize various questions raised by students, such as: What is climate change? What is the problem of global warming? What problems will climate change bring to cities? What are some cases of cities addressing climate issues? What are the impacts of climate change in the cities we live in? Which infrastructure is vulnerable to climate change? Which groups of people in cities are vulnerable to climate change? In addition to climate change, what other development problems do cities face? What would be the main form of energy in the future? Where was Loulan? How could Loulan be made unique?… These questions were not preset by the teachers, but were constantly generated during the activities.

Research materials: Research materials help to solve problems more efficiently, and citing authoritative materials will make research more convincing. We guide students to use tools such as Baidu Academic and Wanfang Database to search for topics, issues and content that need to be researched, download relevant literature materials, extract valuable content for research, and form their own database. Standing on the shoulders of giants, research can be meaningful and generate their own innovations. The students found some famous climate change response cases by searching the data, such as Copenhagen’s liveable city, London’s green city, Rotterdam’s climate protection city, New York’s resilient city, Singapore’s sustainable development city… At the same time, when the students searched the response measures of various cities, they also found the powerful drainage system of the Forbidden City – Qianlong Spitting Water. Drawing on the wisdom of the ancients, the students introduced this concept into the design of drainage pipes in future cities, so that the designed city has both the resilience of a sponge city and strong Chinese elements in the face of severe rainstorms.

Form a report: The report is an important form of research and a vehicle for testing the quality of the research. The report can be a thesis, a manuscript with pictures and texts, or a vivid video. Considering the professionalism of this research, we asked the students to write a research paper in a collaborative manner, specifying how to plan and design this future Loulan New Town to deal with climate change. After thorough research and consensus, the students have laid a solid theoretical foundation and pointed out the direction for the next action.

　　　　create

　　　　Exercise mobility for STEAM activities

Creation requires students to apply the concept of engineering management and put ideas into practice in combination with the presentation of goals, so as to form works that carry research ideas. Creation is also an important way to move from theory to practice. How to guide students to create scientifically tests the level of teachers’ activity design. Our usual practice is to be driven by project goals and ask students to make physical objects such as models, posters or display boards. In the process of creation, we use project reports as management tools to promote the orderly progress of the project. In the process of promoting future urban design, we use the form of making urban models, which can exercise students’ literacy in science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics in all directions.

Making a model of a city requires students to master various tools, materials, and model-making techniques. In addition to providing students with various tool brackets during the learning process, students will also have various specific problems to analyze and solve in the actual creative process, such as students wanting to build complex terrain, want to make a technology-filled shuttle gate, want to design a rotating device, and so on. These specific problems require everyone to learn, explore, and explore together, and there is no existing plan for everyone to learn from. Therefore, teachers should pay special attention to the creative process and require students to strictly check the innovation, aesthetics, science, and technology of the work. Only through a rigorous creative process can students have a truly meaningful project experience and harvest.

　　　　show

　　　　Verify the level of practice in STEAM activities

Presentation is an important form of sharing and evaluation of STEAM activities. Students present the project works, relevant background materials, project advancement process, ideas, plans, etc. in the form of drama, defense or demonstration. Display activities need to reserve enough time for students to fully prepare.

We mainly used the form of drama, and the students wrote their own scripts. After 100 years, a professor went to Loulan New Town to open a branch school, interacted with tour guides and waiters, and finally realized the city’s futuristic sense and the story of scientific design. The whole drama performance was close to 7 minutes, and the students not only refined the design highlights of the future city, but also fully expressed the ideas and ideas in the project, which played a crucial role in exercising and improving students’ comprehensive literacy and teachers mastering the specific gains of students in the activities.

　　　　reflection

　　　　Sublimate the Knowledge Connotation of STEAM Activities

Demonstration is not the end of STEAM activities. To form a perfect closed loop, there should also be a reflection session. Reflection requires not only students to review and summarize the project, but also teachers to seriously reflect on the development of the entire activity, so that knowledge can be sublimated and students can think and act. Generally, we will strike while the iron is hot after the demonstration session, so that students can form written reflections, which will help to improve the connotation of knowledge.

In short, STEAM activities are carefully designed by teachers and generated by students. There must be a complete design process so that the activities can be carried out smoothly, and there must be independent generation by students to make the projects more creative. When teachers design activities from the perspective of complete closed-loop STEAM activities, students’ learning will become more autonomous and efficient, and most importantly, real learning will happen.

(The author’s unit is Daoxianghu School, Haidian District, Beijing)

"China Education News" September 8, 2023, 6th edition