Effectiveness of combining STEM activities and PBL: A case study of the design of fuel-efficient vehicles

This study aims to explore students’ learning effectiveness in energy education that integrates STEM (science, technology,engineering, and mathematics) activities and PBL (project-based learning). The subjects of experimental teaching were 32junior engineering students enrolled in a project-based course in a Taiwanese university, and this study held a 9-weekactivity—‘‘STEM & PBL Activities for the Innovative Design of Fuel-efficient Vehicles’’. In the activity, the integratedthinking emphasized by STEM plays a dominant role when combined with project-based learning strategies. The studentstook the main role in the course, while the teacher provided guidance to the students in learning and monitored theirlearning progress. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were adopted in this study: the qualitative analysis focused onstudents’ projects, and interviews were conducted to understand students’ opinions on the teaching activities; thequantitative results were analyzed and discussed. The STEM & PBL energy course covers various disciplines, such asscience, technology, engineering, and mathematics, yielding a significant positive effect on learning effectiveness in the fieldof energy education. The teaching mode of the course includes four aspects: the students discuss real energy problems todeepen their integrated STEM knowledge and abilities; the students work on actual fuel-efficient projects, with focus onintegrated STEM learning; the students implement the project based on the STEM knowledge they learn from the energyeducation course; and the teacher promotes the learning portfolio of STEM and energy education. Based on the aboveconclusions, this study offers suggestions for teaching and future studies.