As a response to the need to prepare the next generation of students for democratic access to the fundamental and complex ideas in STEM from an early age, we propose Campus Viviente in STEM Education. Campus Viviente integrates the design of learning environments for STEM education, an emergent model for professional development, and assessment of student knowledge in ways that capture the complexity of learning in the STEM areas in deep and meaningful ways. Campus Viviente is an international research project that gives place to an organic and dynamic educational system integrating the active participation of students, teachers, administrators, and researchers.
What is Campus Viviente?
We propose the innovative designs of learning environments that seamlessly make connections between formal and informal learning, where the school or campus becomes a vital source and a “living†object of knowledge. Schools become more than the place where teaching occurs, and become places where students, teachers, and the community can interact in natural and constructed contexts. These environments facilitate the elicitation of powerful STEM ideas through real-life situations that students can directly experience on campus and in their local communities for meaningful learning that responds to current educational needs in our society for the 21st Century. Learning is mediated by the use of materials and technologies that are easily available and low cost.
This project focuses on the development of knowledge that is both local and ubiquitous. We look to change the current existing discontinuities between formal curriculum and the place where teaching and learning take place. Beginning with activities for teaching and learning STEM, primarily in the classroom, and through affordable technologies and tools (e.g., a protractor, a compass, open-source software), we plan to extend these to other settings so that they become scalable and sustainable. Our objective is to support a new educational vision for STEM education by generating experiences that can take place in the schools, universities, or nearby areas, and utilizing easy access materials and technologies that are open source, to prepare the next generation of STEM students.
How does Campus Viviente support scalability and sustainability to provide access to STEM Education for all students?
Because our focus is on ensuring that all students have access to a deep and meaningful understanding of fundamental STEM ideas, the approach that we employ is a design for scalability and sustainability. We are inspired by Jaime Lerner, the Brazilian architect and expert on urban sustainability, who said, “If you want creativity, cut a zero form the budget; and if you want sustainability, cut two zeroes.” Therefore, all of the innovative approaches to learning, teaching, and assessment in STEM that we develop are focused on providing democratic and equitable access to all students, and are protected under the Creative Commons Copyright: Attribution – Non Commercial – Share Alike (by-nc-sa). This allows the Campus Viviente Communities to have free access and contribute to all resources available to the educational community without cost. A student or teacher can have access to all Campus Viviente resources via a portable USBViviente 2.0, which is a Linux-based bootable self-contained system with open source software and project-developed curricular activities, for the cost of a USB drive (approximately $5U.S.). Because of the type of copyrights, USBViviente2.0 can be freely copied and distributed. All of Campus Viviente resources can be accessed with or without Internet connectivity.
In a time when Hispanic students are the fastest-growing population in the U.S., providing support for these STEM education resources that are also bilingual/bi-culturally sensitive in Spanish and English and strengthening ties with STEM researchers in Mexico and Latin America, are fundamental pieces to achieve these needed changes. It is clear that this vision cannot be achieved by a single individual. This is why Campus Viviente has been strategically engineered to build and sustain the infrastructure needed to support an international network of scholars, research, and resources, through which we have been able to receive funding to support our efforts and shared vision. Hosted at The University of Texas at San Antonio, the second largest Hispanic-serving institution in the U.S., our research partners include: Secretaría de Educación y Cultura del Estado de Coahuila, Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Universidad Juárez de Estado de Durango, Secretaría de Educación y Cultura del Estado de Durango, Universidad de Quintana Roo, Secretaría de Educación de Michoacán.
How can Campus Viviente be supported?
Currently CampusViviente in STEM Education is being implemented in: Coahuila, Mexico, with the generous support of AHMSA International and through the collaboration of Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT); in Durango, Mexico, with funding from Fondo Mixto de Fomento a la Investigación Científica and the National Council of Science and Technology-Conacyt (FOMIX DGO 2010 C02-144267); in Quintana Roo, Mexico, with funding from Universidad de Quintana Roo; and in Michoacán, Mexico, with support from the Ministry of Education. For inquiries about CampusViviente please contact Dr. Guadalupe Carmona: guadalupe.carmona@utsa.edu
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