Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

The motivation behind the Stepping Stones project is to encourage students to be active, thoughtful, and engaged as they participate in activities leading up to a final class project. These stimulating and instructive activities are planned in a way that touches on different approaches to engaging students in learning and experiencing. There are three main stepping stones leading up to the final project: an outing, an assignment, and a guest speaker. These activities are all linked to each other and involve actively discovering and experiencing (outing: visiting an exhibition); thinking about and expressing (assignment: writing a reflective response to the exhibition); and listening to and engaging with an expert in the field (guest speaker).   

The module contains tips about how to go about building the three “stepping stones”. It can be used by teachers who are looking to organize their classes around a major theme, or who are working towards a final project. It can also be used by students who are working on developing a project (for example, SPACE certificate students working on a capstone project; ALC students working on their IA; Science students working on their CE.  By giving examples of the public programming leading up to the SPACE Showcase on the annual theme teachers and students will be able to follow the steps to creating their own activities that are relevant to their situations.

1. Organize an Outing Linked to Your Theme
2. A Reflective Response Assignment
3. Guest Lecture
4. Section for Students: A student-driven version of the Stepping Stones module

For students who are interested in this resource and in organizing their own stepping stones, please see the section “Student-driven version” where there are specific notes for you!