STEAM y gestión de residuos sólidos: Enfoque pedagógico para potenciar el pensamiento crítico en estudiantes de contextos urbanos y rurales

Abstract

The document highlights how a research project can be used to design STEM education strategies with the aim of promoting critical thinking among students in cycles II and III in two contexts: one rural in the Antioquia region and the other urban in Bogotá, the capital. The rural context involves the Zoila Duque Baena institution, located in the municipality of Abejorral, Chagualal village, in the department of Antioquia. This institution has limited resources, but its natural setting allows one of the proposals of this research to present relevant advances compared to the urban context. The second institution, Colegio Provincia de Quebec, is located in the fourth district of Bogotá (San Cristóbal), which has access and social and environmental problems, and also allowed for the development of STEM strategies with primary school students. In the rural context, a homemade biodigester was developed with the direct participation of the students and using materials available in the school and home environment. This biodigester facilitated the transfer of educational activities to the urban institution, which was able to acquire knowledge and develop an educational video game in the Scratch environment, focusing on the issue of organic and inorganic waste management. The research project was guided by the objective of designing STEM education strategies to promote critical thinking in fourth, sixth, and seventh-grade students in the Provincia de Quebec institution in Bogotá (urban context) and the Zoila Duque Baena institution in Antioquia (rural context) through the creation of a homemade biodigester and the design of an educational video game addressing the issue of the management of organic and inorganic waste. This multidisciplinary approach (STEM) sought to eliminate the barriers between science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, integrating them into the real world through meaningful experiences. That is why, through the development of STEM skills such as critical thinking, students visualized an environmental problem in their context, which helped promote the initiatives and functions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 11, which aims to minimize the ecological footprint per person in urban environments, and SDG 12, which aims to significantly reduce waste production through preventive actions. The methodology adopted was based on a qualitative approach, allowing for a deep understanding of the participants' experiences and perceptions. The approach used to address the research question is the case study, given that this research technique is applied when examining a current phenomenon in a real environment. Likewise, this research is descriptive in nature, as it seeks to observe and collect data, identifying patterns from descriptive statistics, collecting selected information through questionnaires, field journals, and logs, in addition to continuous graphic recording. The results obtained validate the fact that the proposed learning strategies reveal the acquisition of interpretation, argumentation, and decision-making skills, achieving positive and replicable impacts on the proper management of solid waste in both educational institutions.