Scientific skateboarding and mathematical music: Edutainment that actively engages middle school students

Abstract

Edutainment has recently been a major growing area of education, showing great promise to motivate students with relevant activities. The authors are among innovators who have developed cutting-edge fusions of popular culture and STEM concepts to engage and to motivate middle school students, using vehicles such as music/song and skateboarding. The importance of using relevant and practical methods of instruction and curriculum delivery that build on student interests and increase enjoyment in the learning process are critical at the middle school level, especially in the STEM fields. The use of edutainment in this manner is meant to inspire broader interest in mathematics and science for middle school students and to develop a culture of education that makes learning more accessible to all students. This paper surveys and illustrates the use of such immersive modalities to involve middle school students actively with concepts and suggests further directions for the use of demonstrations and videos in educational settings.