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[EV0103] Real World Problem Solving Skills

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Every issue related to water resources relates to all of us and is our daily concern. Climate change, deteriorating water quality or lack of resources are problems that need to be addressed and taken care of.

The skills needed to solve real-world problems and innovate can be developed by our students from school.

What do we need for this?

  1. Teachers should plan a scenario that is based on real context and promotes innovation in students
  2. Students should explore the problem and create a solution to the problem
  3. Students should implement this solution

In the process of working on the solution, they should communicate with the audience beyond the classroom, both during the research and during the solution review and implementation stages.

For example, the proposed scenario might be as follows: Ask students to study the problem of water pollution in their community, district, school, neighborhood. They will collect data to identify root-cause factors and outcomes and devise methods to solve them. If water pollution is caused by an arbitrarily arranged landfill along the river, the problem may be that the population does not even have a specially arranged place to dump garbage. The solution may be not only to organize the cleaning of this garbage, but also to place garbage bins in a convenient place for the population and to demand the organization of regular garbage disposal for the municipality. They can actually implement even a developed solution. In this process, students interact beyond the classroom with community members as well as experts, public figures, and more.

The problem is real and still unresolved. Thus students have a specific situation, a specific context and have to collect and analyze real data to solve a problem. In addition, it is very important that the solution is presented to a specific target audience. From such an approach students learn to communicate and share responsibilities with out-of-school stakeholders.

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