INTEGRATED CAREER-BASED STEM LESSON "ROLLER COASTER ENGINEER" IN TEACHING KINETIC AND POTENTIAL ENERGY - PHYSICS 10

Abstract

The paper aims to present an integrated career-based STEM lesson, "Roller Coaster Engineer," in teaching the Kinetic and Potential Energy of the 10th-grade Physics Curriculum. Based on the theoretical foundation of STEM education and career-oriented education, STEM learning activities were designed for a roller coaster engineer to increase students’ STEM career interests and foster career-oriented competence. An experiment with 116 10th graders was conducted, and the result shows that the lesson "Roller Coaster Engineer" meets the competence requirements for kinetic and potential energy. In addition, a survey (STEM-CIS-STEM Career Interest Survey) was also conducted to explore student’s STEM career interests, and the results show that students feel more confident about STEM jobs after the lesson. Therefore, students were more interested in STEM careers, which contributed significantly to students’ choice of a STEM career. The results also support the idea that students have a good awareness of engineering careers