Climate change, health, and digitality: New OER for STEM lessons available on the Siemens Stiftung Media Portal

The Siemens Stiftung Media Portal supports teachers and students with over 3,400 open educational resources (OER) for all types of schools and grade levels. The offering in German and English comprises a wide selection of practice-oriented teaching materials, ranging from images, worksheets, and videos, to simulations, experiments and interactive exercises, as well as complete packages on various topics. The materials are free, quality-checked, and modifiable under CC BY-SA 4.0 international.

New, contemporary content is added to the offering on a regular basis.

Climate change: Melting glaciers, extreme droughts, and floods – the consequences of climate change are omnipresent. The media package Climate change – Understanding global warming launches a multi-part series on all aspects of the topic. It supports teachers in conveying basic knowledge about the greenhouse effect to students so they can carry on discussions on the topic and take action themselves. Part II addresses the Impacts of climate change and the connection with current extreme weather events all over the world. It examines how changes in the climate system impact people, plants, animals, and ecosystems and explains possibilities for adaptation. The third media package of the series, covering the question of how global warming can be limited to 1.5°C, will be published very soon.

Health: From pathogens to immunization – technical knowledge on vaccination for a well-founded opinion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the topic of vaccination triggered intense and, above all, controversial public discussions. To provide skills to young people to make their own decisions and to argue well-founded positions in debates with others, it is all the more important to add the topic of vaccination to science lessons. The current Vaccination media package supports teachers in imparting the necessary basic knowledge: on the immune system, vaccines, infectious diseases and their spread, and the associated social and ethical questions.

Digitality: Artificial intelligence, Big Data, and Algorithms in our everyday lives. These three media packages with illustrative graphics, information sheets, worksheets, and many other media are more topical than ever when we consider ChatGPT (Chatbot generative pre-trained transformer), currently a hot topic of discussion in the digital age.