The inSTEAM Team offers a set of inclusive learning scenarios in the form of Inquiry Learning Spaces (ILSs) in the Go-Lab ecosystem.The ILSs are devoted  to three overall topics: climate change, renewable energy, water management.

Proposed implementation: Each Inquiry Learning Space can be implemented in a standalone mode. Moreover, they can be combined in a more extensive project that addresses the specific topic. If combined, then the ILS with scientific inclusive impact approach could be followed by the ILSs with Socioeconomic, Open Schooling and/or Cultural inclusive impact approaches. The principles of universal design for learning (UDL) are introduced in these learning and teaching lessons.

COLLECTION OF INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL STEAM LESSONS

Climate Change

Is Climate Change real? – Looking at the science behind the debate (primary and secondary schools/ Scientific impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the scientific impact approach. This activity is about Climate Change and the controversy around it about being a reality or not. Students are invited to do a small basic research to decide for themselves weather they believe in Climate change or not. After this process is complete, students are invited to participate in a debate and support their opinion using concrete arguments.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand the basic science behind climate change
  • Understand the impact of human emissions on our climate
  • Describe briefly the main consequences of raising temperatures

Is Climate Change real? – Spreading the word to your local community (primary and secondary schools / Open Schooling impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the Open Schooling approach. It aspires to turn students to young Climate Change Activitists. Students are invited to reflect on why people don't really worry about Climate Change as well as on their habits and that of their community and think about ways to encourage citizens to uptake action in mitigating Climate Change locally. The activity follows the Design Thinking approach which promotes the Open Schooling concept for building bridge between schools and local communities. It is recommended that before doing this activity, students follow the relative Climate Change scientific inquiry activity, as indicated in the first phase.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand the impact of climate change to our lives and our planet
  • Understand that every citizen is affected by climate change and that everyone can help mitigate it
  • Discuss about climate change, explain what it is and raise awareness around it

Is Climate Change real? – An artistic point of view (primary and secondary schools, Cultural impact approach)

This learning activity was designed for cultural inclusive environmental lesson. The activity aims to bring the artist out of every student and invites them to create their own piece of art to raise awareness around Climate Change. To conclude the activity, students are invited to launch their own exhibition and present their art.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand the basic science behind climate change
  • Express themselves artistically and communicate their messages about climate change through their art
  • Prepare a themed exhibition around climate change

Greenhouse gases: Friends or foes? (primary and secondary schools / Scientific impact approach)

The presented environmental ILS was designed implementing the scientific impact approach. In this activity students learn about the science behind the Greenhouse Effect and how different molecules interact with electromagnetic radiation. Students get an overall idea of why the Greenhouse effect is important but at the same time, human activities can disturb the delicate balance of the effect.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able understand:
  • the role of Greenhouse Gases in shaping the planet's climate
  • that naturally produced Greenhouse Gases are important to Earth's climate
  • how human-produced Greenhouse gases disturb the balance of our atmosphere
  • how the Greenhouse Effect works

Greenhouse gases: What’s your diet’s footprint? (secondary school / Socioeconomic impact approach)

The presented environmental ILS employs the socioeconomic inclusive impact approach. In this activity we place our focus on the eating habits of people and how those habits contribute in Climate Change. Students are challenged to rethink what they eat and reflect on how their personal choices can have an impact locally and globally.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand how can our food choices affect the environment and the production of greenhouse emissions
  • Understand how the production of food affects greenhouse gas emissions
  • Understand to reduce their Carbon Dioxide footprint by changing their diet.

Greenhouse gases: Reducing human emissions (secondary school / Open Schooling impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the Open Schooling approach. In this activity, students become Climate Change activists and are invited to help their community reduce its Carbon Dioxide emissions and their ecological footprint. Students are challenged to think and propose ways for their community to reduce energy consumption and consider changing their living style towards a more sustainable one.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand the role of Greenhouse gases in shaping the planet's climate
  • Understand the impact of human-produced greenhouse gases
  • Raise awareness around human-produced greenhouse gases and offer solution to citizens to reduce their own emissions.

Water Management

Water Consumption: Can water in swimming pools get lost? (primary school / Scientific impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the scientific impact approach. Prompted by the existence of too many swimming pools in the Mediterranean countries, students are asked whether the water in a pool can get lost. To answer this question, they explore the factors that affect the evaporation rate of water. Therefore, at the end of the lesson they will able to relate the evaporation rate of the water in a pool with its surface area and the climate conditions in the region, meaning high temperatures, wind and humidity.
Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand that evaporation occurs when a liquid is changed into a gas
  • Plan investigations and conduct fair experiments to investigate the factors that affect the rate of evaporation
  • Provide evidence on how surface area, temperature, wind and humidity affect the evaporation rate
  • Argue how the phenomenon of evaporation relates to water consumption and swimming pools.

Water Consumption: Swimming pools and the tourism industry (primary school / Socioeconomic impact approach)

The presented environmental ILS employs the socioeconomic inclusive impact approach. In this activity, students bring together and analyse the socio-economic aspects of the increased number of swimming pools in relation to the municipalities, the tourism industry and the local residents. To do so, they are guided to perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis and at the end of the lesson, they present their optimised solutions that contribute to environmental protection and water saving.
Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Use Google Maps to navigate around an area, planning routes and explore the area using the satellite function
  • Calculate water consumption and the cost based on given water fees
  • Understand the relation between water consumption, water demand and water pricing
  • Understand that maintaining a swimming pool may cause environmental damages
  • Understand and perform a SWOT analysis
  • Create a social science interview
  • Collect and work with social data
  • Engage in a water campaign to communicate their knowledge.

Water Consumption: Fill a pool without water (primary school / Cultural impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed following the cultural impact and aims to bring the creativity out of every student. Due to the incapacity of some owners to maintain their swimming pools, students explore innovative ideas to transform an empty swimming pool into alternative uses, more sustainable in terms of water management. After getting inspired by several solutions, they design and present their own.
Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Describe the historical evolution of swimming pools
  • Calculate the volume of a swimming pool
  • Investigate how the shape and the dimensions of a swimming pool affect its volume
  • Create and present innovative ideas for swimming pool transformations.

Clean Water: Making Water Ready-To-Drink (primary school / Scientific impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the scientific impact. During the lesson, primary school students will learn about a water journey from river to faucet. In addition, they will design and perform a related experiment. Student may choose difficulty levels for hypothesis creation and experiment performance. This approach ensures a perfect inclusion in the learning process. By the end of the activity, student may create an instruction for hikers "How to get a ready-to-drink water?" The form of instruction depends on the creativity of the student.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand how the water treatment works.
  • Know the stages of water treatment.
  • Experience a filtration work.
  • Problem solve given a design challenge.
  • Apply measuring instruments.
  • Create creative design methods and instruction.
  • Engage in teamwork to solve a challenge (in case you will choose teamwork format).

Clean Water: How many jeans do you need? (primary school / Socioeconomic impact approach)

The presented environmental ILS employs the socioeconomic inclusive impact. This project allows primary school student to critically evaluate the water footprint using an example of denim production. Besides the scientific competence, student will create a social–economic one. For this purpose, the methodology of SWOT analysis as a laboratory will be employed. Student can share outcome of the analysis over the “Green Jeans Campaign” organized with local community.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand the denim production cycle and its water footprint
  • Understand methods and techniques for reducing the water footprint
  • Apply mathematics (multiplication) for science tasks
  • Understand and perform SWOT analysis
  • Create a social science interview
  • Collect and work with a social data
  • Engage in teamwork to solve a challenge

Clean Water: Past and Present (primary school / Cultural impact approach)

This learning activity was designed for cultural inclusive environmental lesson. The project integrates several elementary school activities (reading/writing, mathematics, art, and environmental culture) on the topic of clean water usage. By applying artwork, data and home experiment, kids will compare the water use in the past and present. They may show artistically the water issue globally and in their community.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Describe the artwork applying the art technique and characteristics
  • Apply mathematics (multiplication) for science tasks
  • Understand cultural use of the water
  • Measure a family water consumption and suggest methods to reduce it
  • Create an artwork using different art material and technique

Global Water Crisis: Looking At The Science Behind Desalination  (secondary school / Scientific impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the scientific impact approach. In this activity, students are getting familiar with the thermal desalination principle and then learn more about a specific method that uses small temperature gradients between different depths of seawater to power a desalination plant. To conclude the Inquiry Learning Space, they explore the potential use of this desalination technique in their country and share their knowledge with their school and community. Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand and describe the process of distillation
  • Understand and appreciate the process of osmosis
  • Explain how a thermal desalination plant works
  • Understand the relationship between the atmospheric pressure and the boiling point of water
  • Explain the potential of operating a thermal desalination plant in their country/region

Global Water Crisis: Desalination In Your Country-Region (secondary school / Socioeconomic impact approach)

The presented environmental ILS employs the socioeconomic inclusive impact approach. In this activity, students are first introduced to the well-known methods of desalination and then identify how many desalination plants function in their country/region and in which technologies their function is based on. In addition, the use of renewable sources of energy to power a desalination plant is further explored. Then, students examine the prospects of implementing (new) desalination technologies in their country/region, by taking into consideration social and economic aspects.
Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Explain the main differences between the thermal desalination methods and the membrane-based desalination methods
  • Provide evidence about the capacity, the operational cost and the energy consumption of the three main desalination methods (i.e. MSF, MED and RO)
  • Understand and perform a SWOT analysis
  • Create a social science interview
  • Collect and work with social data
  • Inform their community about the pros and cons of the operation of desalination plants in their country/region.

Global Water Crisis: Drought Management Plan (secondary school / Open Schooling impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the Open Schooling approach for building a bridge between schools and local communities. In this activity, students explore how meteorological drought affects human demands and values for water, from a hydrological, agricultural and socio-economical point of view. Students are invited to help their community design a local drought management plan and are challenged to think and propose ways for their community to reduce water consumption, not only during a period of drought but as a strategy for adopting a more sustainable behaviour in general. Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand the impact of drought on our lives and our planet
  • Understand that every citizen is affected by drought and that everyone can help face a severe drought
  • Discuss and raise awareness about strategies to understand and face drought in local level
  • Discuss and raise awareness about strategies to adopt a more sustainable behaviour in terms of water consumption and water management at a local level

Clean Water: Sanitation of Wastewater (secondary school / Scientific impact approach)

This activity is devoted to processes of wastewater treatment. Students will conduct an experiment to clean and treat a water sample. In the experiment they will discover how different types of waste are removed from the water and also collect evidence of PH, hardness, conductivity, chlorine and turbidity of water. The suggested experiment initiates student’s thoughts on water management in an environmental study.
Learning objectives:  After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand the phases or stages that are part of the wastewater sanitation process
  • Understand the processes that occur during the process
  • Make responsible use of water resources
  • Promote a culture of environmental sustainability

Clean Water: Reuse of Greywater (secondary school / Open Schooling impact approach)

In this activity we will learn about the origin of grey water and its possibilities for reuse. The aim of the activity is to promote a responsible use of water resources and to foster a culture of environmental sustainability. This is an open schooling activity. In this activity, students reflect on the wastewater in their homes, research gray water recovery systems, analyze which of these systems exist in their community, and finally, with the help of Scratch, they create a solution for reuse of grey water in their local community. Learning objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand how water recovery systems work
  • Identify water recovery systems in their local community
  • Make a responsible use of water resources
  • Create solutions for reuse of grey water

Clean Water: Viruses in Water (secondary school / Scientific impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the scientific impact approach. The secondary school student explores bacteria and viruses in water (ground water, tap and river water). The Virus Explorer Lab helps to examine a diversity of viruses based on structure, genome type, and so on. Based on the investigation data and literature analysis students suggest a method of viruses elimination in water. Student learn how to write a laboratory report and to self-evaluate the work performed.
Learning Objectives: After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Analyze the viral lifetime in water.
  • Describe different components and characteristics of viruses and their role in infection.
  • Describe the ways in which viruses can differ from each other.
  • Compare viruses size

Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy-Good Winds (primary and secondary schools, Scientific impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the scientific impact approach. Students are introduced to the importance of renewable energy, and how the world is doing in the transition to renewable energy. After getting to know the elements of the engineering behind the construction of wind farms, they will take the role of a mayor and undertake an investigation that studies the feasibility of building a wind farm for their village. Finally, they reflect on the difficulties of transiting 100% to wind powers.
  Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Explain the importance of renewable energy
  • Have an idea of how the world and their country are doing in terms of adopting renewable energy 
  • Explain the basics of wind power and wind turbines
  • List the factors that influence the construction of a wind farm
  • Discuss why it is difficult to turn completely to renewable energy

Renewable Energy-Here Comes The Sun (primary and secondary schools, Scientific impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the scientific impact approach. Students are introduced to the importance of electricity in our daily lives and its impact on the environment. They are introduced to renewable energies and the efforts in place to speed up the transition to these sustainable model for producing the energy we need.  The main focus of this ILS is in the solar power generation.  Students will be invited to embark on a mission to select sites where populations can most benefit from such form of energy generation. They will learn about the importance of climate, the proper construction of the solar panels, the impact of the different seasons in different regions of the planet. They will collect various types of information and in the end produce a report with their findings.
Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Explain the importance of renewable energy
  • List the factors that influence the installation of solar panels
  • Understand the importance of factors such as climate and seasons on the production of energy coming from solar panels
  • Discuss why it is difficult to turn completely to renewable energy

Renewable Energy Activists (primary and secondary schools, Socioeconomic impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the socioeconomic impact approach. The main objective is to promote a discussion related to the importance of renewable energy, to engage students in investigating the uptake of renewable energy in their country or region. The ILS will invite students to explore the positive and negative aspects of renewable energies, the difficulties in convincing companies and politicians to take the necessary steps towards its adoption. This project also helps students develop their organisational skills by inviting them to learn how to use a SWOT analysis to support their claims. It invites students to collaborate and cooperate towards the construction of a competing report with their findings. Several important competences will be developed along the process: critical thinking, communication skills, creativity among others.
Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Understand the pros and cons of the main types of renewable energy sources
  • Be able to engage in debates about controversial topics
  • Understand and perform a SWOT analysis
  • Collect and work with data
  • Communicate their ideas

Renewable Energy: Junior Ambassadors (primary and secondary schools, Open Schooling approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed implementing the Open Schooling approach. Students are introduced to the main primary sources of energy and reflect on the consequences of those categorized as non-renewable. After understanding that mankind has a big problem due to the growing energy consumption and the over-dependence on fossil fuels, students look for actions that can be taken at home, at school, and at the local community, that help transition to clean energy and fight against the waste of energy expenditure.
Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Name different primary sources of energy and identify if they are renewable or non-renewable
  • Explain the advantages and disadvantages of renewable and non-renewable energy
  • Explain the energy problem that mankind faces
  • Propose actions that can help finding solutions to the energy problem
  • Raise awareness around the need to transit to clean energy and to consume less energy

Renewable Energy Agents (secondary school, Open Schooling approach)

This ILS is an open-school activity targeting secondary schools, based on the Open Schooling Approach.  The aim is for students to be aware of how much energy they need in their daily lives, where that energy comes from and how they could contribute to a greener planet by using energy more efficiently and by choosing renewable energies when possible. Going one step further than that, this activity will also lead students into sharing their work with the community, raising awareness and promoting change.  This ILS is designed to be adopted as a project. The duration and depth of the project can be defined by the teachers. Our agents will learn about energy waste in our streets, in their household as energy consumption and imagine how they can save energy at home and in their daily lives, and what changes could be made to use more renewable energies. Finally, they will create a plan to reduce the use of energy and include solutions to use more renewable energies. After their work is done, they will share their ideas.
Learning Objectives
  • Raise Awareness about unnecessary energy expenditure
  • Find alternative solutions to the energy problem
  • Understand various sources of energy waste in our daily lives
  • Imagine tangible solutions for saving energy
  • Understand the limitations of renewable energy

Renewable Energy: Overcoming Cultural Barriers (primary and secondary schools / Cultural impact approach)

This inclusive environmental ILS was designed following a cultural impact approach. Students will reflect on how much our lives nowadays depend on electricity and fuels, compared to the past and to less developed countries. After understanding the need to transit to renewable energies, they will be introduced to the concept of Renewable Energy Land Art and will create their own Artwork. To finalize the activity, students will gather all their work and plan an exhibition that will reveal their understanding of the importance of renewable energy.
Learning Objectives After this activity, students should be able to:
  • Explain how important energy is for countries to develop
  • Explain the importance of renewable energy
  • Explain the basics of solar energy and wind power
  • Discuss the importance of overcoming cultural barriers
  • Propose Renewable Energy Land Art ideas to their local community

Universal Design for Learning

In order to understand the principles of the universal design and make your activity inclusive please perform the Lesson – Universal Design for Learning