STEM practices and educational robotics: a didactic proposal for the primary school

Abstract

STEM education is part of the curriculum in several countries worldwide. In Portugal, although this is not the case, there is a growing trend towards the integration of content from STEM subjects, identified in several initiatives and research projects. STEM pedagogical practices foster motivating environments, allowing students to develop skills while solving real problems, in an interdisciplinary way and with technological resources and materials. By integrating educational robotics – which is starting to be present in the curricular documents – favorable conditions for significant learning are fostered, abstract concepts are made concrete, and communication, leadership, management, and cooperation skills are developed. The scarcity of tasks that integrate educational robotics with curricular links is one of the obstacles identified in the literature. Thus, we present a hypothetical learning scenario based on an air conditioning model, establishing connections between mathematical content - with the possibility of exploring different concepts and skills, but with a stronger connection to the subject of Data Organization and Treatment -, energy efficiency, and sustainability. This didactic proposal allows an adaptation to different contexts within elementary school grades – suggesting extension teaching proposals for the 3rd and 4th grades –, facilitating the exploration of mathematical skills and concepts.