Interdisziplinäre MINT Scenario Games

The MINT Scenario Games project is the result of a collaboration between three different organisations with unique strengths to increase the motivation and interest of STEM learners and develop innovative digital teaching and learning methods. The partners of this project are the Ulrich-von-Hutten-Gymnasium, which brought in the pedagogical focus and focus on STEM subjects, L&K development, an e-learning company responsible for the technical implementation and extensive expertise in digital education, and Holztechnikum, a vocational secondary school specialising in the environment and wood. We deliberately chose a small-scale partnership in order to facilitate an uncomplicated entry into transnational projects. Our main goal was to link maths and science topics with digital learning in a practical and superordinate context. We therefore developed an app in which students and teachers were actively involved in the implementation.

The objectives of the "MINT Scenario Games" project can be roughly summarised in two categories: The practical linking of STEM subjects in higher-level contexts and the creation and use of digital learning methods and media through the active participation of students and teachers. The development of individual scenarios in project weeks included maths and science tasks in an overall context (e.g. sustainability, environment, society). This created an interdisciplinary approach that emphasises practical applicability ("What do you need maths/chemistry/physics/... for in real life?") and should therefore increase interest in STEM. Teachers and learners were not only able to co-determine the use but also the development of new digital media in the project. This promoted digital skills and led to the development of new teaching concepts, ideas and the published Scenario app.

The project consisted of four central activities that build on each other: 1. Project planning, prototype and web app: in this phase we defined the project objectives, designed a prototype scenario and developed the Scenario Creator web app to enable the creation of scenarios. 2. Project days and scenario creation: Students actively participated in the creation of scenarios that included maths and science tasks in overarching contexts such as sustainability and the environment. The scenarios were entered into the Creator by the students themselves. 3. Development of the app: We developed an Android and iOS app to make the created scenarios playable. 4. Classroom use, evaluation and dissemination: The created app and the developed learning materials were used in the classroom. Many programming activities, e.g. the design, prototyping and scenario preview in Creator, were developed in computer science lessons. The evaluation of the results and the publication of the results as open source software and on the project website www.scenario-games.eu took place afterwards.

Five central outputs were developed as part of the project: 1. Teaching concepts for computer science lessons with the question "How do I develop an app?" (e.g. prototyping, CSS/HTML implementations, interfaces, databases and storage, app programming, etc.). 2. The Scenario Creator web app, which makes it possible to create scenarios online, share them and publish them in the app 3. Concepts and manuals for use in the classroom and in project weeks, which highlight the process of scenario implementation and answer the question "How do I develop a scenario?". 4. The scenarios themselves, which link the maths and science tasks in an overall context to promote an interdisciplinary approach. 5. Android and iOS apps, which make the scenarios playable and serve as digital learning tools.