Micro-project Design of STEAM Education for Preschoolers Based on Striking Life Phenomena

Abstract

As STEAM education has received growing attention in early childhood in recent years, how can we provide young children quality experience of STEAM learning? High-quality STEAM education project resources are a solid foundation for STEAM education quality assurance. The article takes striking phenomena in children's lives as a key point to extract and design micro-projects for STEAM education for young children. The main ideas behind the micro-projects design are as following: (1) Effectively capturing the striking life phenomena that can evoke a strong experience of children. (2) Extracting the key scientific problem and inferring progressive problems behind the phenomena. (3) Defining the micro-project and clarifying the composition of its sub-projects. (4) Realizing the integral elements of STEAM learning, etc. In a word, the micro-project design aims to establish interdisciplinary connections through in-depth exploration based on striking life phenomena and real problems. Taking the fingerprint of preschooler's fingertips as an example, behind the striking phenomena the key scientific question "What is the genetic secret (e.g., the genetic mechanisms)" can be extracted, and then a series of progressive questions like "What is the fingerprint? Is there any difference in fingerprints among children?" "Is the child's fingerprint the same as that of his/her parents?", "Does the child look the same as his/her parents?" "How can fingerprint be applied into our lives" can be drawn. To establish and clarify the micro-project and sub-projects based on these questions, and then to define embedded STEAM learning elements and other information. This is the design process and the main composition of a micro-project. These could be an effective way to boost quality project resource exploration for young children's STEAM education. Issues for further exploration are also discussed.