STEAM boxes and the environment : reduce, reuse, recycle

Reduce

First of all, one of our goals was to use as little as we could when we designed the boxes: they contain everything that is needed for the experiment (plus a narrative resource), general instructions and sequence ideas, and that is it! We did not want to include materials that would be here for aesthetics only, and the structures or experiments your pupils will create work well on their own, so there is no need to add anything else to the table. Sure, you can use a rubber stamp in the “Pigments of the flowers” box, but this is purely optional, so we did not include it in the box. Additionally, having less materials helps keeping the box affordable: many items that are required – such as pens, rulers, scissors – can be found in the classroom already.

Reuse

Then, we designed the boxes to be reusable: the materials contained within are, in most cases, reusable several times, and we provided alternatives when we felt like paper or cardboard could not be reused many times. For example, in the “How to use a map” box, we designed a paper chess board but provided ways to make a wooden one and to print the pieces with a 3D printer.

Recycle

Finally, if you take a look at all our boxes, you will realize that there are many materials, or even sometimes topics, in common. And indeed: as we mentioned earlier, we aim to use materials that can be easily found in the classroom, but since our experiments as based off affordable components, you will find them several times in our boxes. Of course, even though we usually advise you to store the box components in large envelopes or shoe boxes, you may move the contents from one box to another!

Then, as you can find in our theoretical guides on how to create your boxes or conduct your STEAM activities, we encourage you to explore new things on your own. Which implies that you can reuse the content of our boxes for other activities too! Isn’t the goal of the My Box of STEAM project to make you think outside the box?

Educate

Even though this is not part of the 3 Rs, this project also aims to educate about the environment. Our boxes tackle several subjects, and the preservation of the environment is a recurring sub-theme of many boxes: check out the “Clean the ocean”, “Solar energy” or “Air” boxes for more information! This will also enable you to make some links between the boxes and your classes, as they will be part of your curricula in more than one way.