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Evaluating a Teaching Intervention for Teaching STEM and Programming Concepts Through the Creation of a Weather-Forecast App for Smart Mobile Devices

The last two decades have necessitated the need for an interdisciplinary approach to mathematics, science, and technology (STEM) as contemporary problems are too multidimensional to be tackled by a single scientific discipline as was the case with classical school curricula. Teaching programming has the potential to contribute to this vision as it is effective in helping students develop critical thinking skills. This work presents an educational approach that combines STEM learning with the basic concepts of programming through the creation of a weather-forecast app for smart mobile devices with the programming environment MIT App Inventor. This approach was implemented with second grade high school students as a school project. The evaluation results are considered encouraging as the students engaged in authentic learning activities and research related to the STEM field while, at the same time, enhanced their interest and knowledge in pursuing careers involving programming, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.