Developing the floating restaurant STEM education learning activities for Thai secondary school students

Abstract

This study aimed to provide STEM education learning activities based on student context where require problem solving in real world. The issues of floating restaurant designing will be raised in order to enhance students to learn not only content knowledge but also practice those kinds of knowledge in context. The paper will clarify the learning activities which provide through Context based STEM education learning approach. This approach consists of 7 stages including (1) Identification of social issues, (2) Identification of potential solution, (3) Need for knowledge, (4) Decision-making, (5) Development of prototype or product, (6) Test and evaluation of the solution, and (7) Socialization and completion decision stage. Identification of social issues, the construction of floating restaurant will be raised in order to enhance students to identify the problem from the context. Identification of potential solution, the five capitals related to the problem will be discussed to allow students identifying the possible solutions. The need for knowledge, learning activities for constructing meaning of buoyant force, density, sinking and floating, volume, area, geometry, and other related knowledge will be provided. The decision making stage, students will list the possible ways of constructing their floating restaurant and then make decision what kind of floating restaurant will be constructed based on their five capitals analysis. The development of prototype or product stage, students will develop their prototype of floating restaurant. Test and evaluation of the solution stage, students will discuss their conceptualization of test and evaluation for their prototype of floating restaurant and then test and evaluate it. The socialization and completion decision stage, students will socialize their ideas and improve the completed version through presentation of prototype of floating restaurant. The paper will discuss how to provide students chance to applying STEM knowledge through these activities.