Organization of stem-research based on the example of theoretical research on economic and technical characteristics of a small hydroelectric plant

Abstract

The article shows the importance of introducing elements of STEM education into the educational process in accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

We considered the purpose and the method of setting STEM-research tasks for secondary school students to create suitable conditions for developing competence in various spheres of life. For this, we singled out the achievements of modern didactics regarding the introduction of heuristic and research-based teaching methods. We outlined the main general properties and structural and systemic analysis of educational research as a type of academic activity.

We found that the teacher organizes STEM research by setting local research tasks, the content of which refers to one or the other educational discipline. We determined the optimal number of such disciplines and the distribution of local tasks by levels of complexity.

In particular, this article offers a variant of STEM research intended for student extracurricular work, based on the following academic disciplines and areas of activity close to them: physics (both theoretical and experimental), geography (economic geography, ecology), economics (calculation of capital investments in the construction of an object and its payback period) and, of course, mathematics, which is used in all the listed areas.

However, in such educational research, physics is the central discipline around which all others are grouped. The presence of such an essential discipline simplifies the organization and increases the effectiveness of research, as it unites and serves as a foundation of all its other areas.

According to our observations, the effective implementation of STEM education in both curricular and extracurricular forms of education is possible when setting local educational and research tasks under the guidance of a teacher.

The article also outlines the main directions for organizing further STEM research in the field of physics as an educational subject. In particular, it’s intended to develop new types of STEM research tasks involving other educational subjects. For example, physics, biology, chemistry, geography, history, computer science, mathematics, etc.