The core connotation of STEAM education is interdisciplinary integration, breaking the isolated boundaries between single disciplines and cultivating children’s comprehensive literacy and practical ability to solve complex problems. As an excellent educational auxiliary tool, building blocks are the perfect carrier for the interdisciplinary integration of STEAM education—they can naturally integrate the knowledge and abilities of science, technology, engineering, art and math into a single building activity, letting children learn and apply interdisciplinary knowledge in a playful and hands-on way. In the context of STEAM interdisciplinary education, building blocks are no longer a simple toy, but a “comprehensive learning platform” that links various disciplines, which helps children form a holistic cognitive view of knowledge and cultivate the comprehensive literacy needed for future social development.
Building blocks realize the organic integration of five STEAM disciplines in a single building task, making interdisciplinary learning natural and seamless. A simple “building a small garden with building blocks” activity contains the knowledge of all five STEAM disciplines: in terms of science, children need to understand the growth characteristics of plants and the ecological relationship between flowers, grass and insects to build a realistic garden; in terms of technology, they can use simple mechanical blocks to build a watering device and learn the basic principle of water flow transmission; in terms of engineering, they need to design the layout of the garden, build flower beds and paths, and ensure the structural stability and rationality of the works; in terms of art, they match the colors and shapes of blocks to create a visually beautiful garden landscape and exercise aesthetic creation ability; in terms of math, they count the number of blocks used, measure the size of flower beds, and use the knowledge of proportion to design the ratio of various elements in the garden. In this process, children do not learn the five disciplines separately, but integrate all knowledge to complete a single task, which makes them understand that various disciplines are interrelated and mutually supportive.
What’s more, building blocks cultivate children’s interdisciplinary problem-solving ability, which is the core goal of STEAM education. In the process of building with blocks, children often encounter complex problems that cannot be solved by a single discipline—for example, “the self-made brick windmill does not rotate”. To solve this problem, children need to use interdisciplinary knowledge: from the perspective of engineering, check whether the windmill’s support structure is stable and whether the rotating shaft is smooth; from the perspective of technology, adjust the size and angle of the windmill blades to understand the relationship between blade design and wind power utilization; from the perspective of science, explore the principle of wind force driving objects to rotate; even from the perspective of math, calculate the angle of the blades and the distance between the rotating shaft and the blades to optimize the design. This process of analyzing and solving problems with interdisciplinary knowledge exercises children’s ability to integrate and apply knowledge, and lets them form the thinking habit of “comprehensive thinking and multi-angle problem-solving”. Unlike the single thinking mode of solving textbook problems with a single discipline knowledge, the problem-solving ability cultivated by building blocks is more in line with the needs of real life, where most problems require interdisciplinary knowledge to solve.
Building blocks help children form a holistic knowledge cognitive view and break the fragmented cognitive state of single disciplines. In traditional education, children learn different disciplines in separate classes, and knowledge is presented in a fragmented way, which makes it difficult for children to connect different disciplines and form a holistic understanding of knowledge. Building blocks change this situation—they take a specific building task as the core, and take various disciplinary knowledge as the “tool” to complete the task. Children will find that math knowledge can help optimize the structure of engineering works, art creation can make scientific models more vivid, and technological principles can make engineering design more practical. This kind of knowledge connection makes children realize that all disciplinary knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge system, and they can be combined and applied with each other. This holistic knowledge cognitive view is very important for children’s future learning—it lets them learn new knowledge with a connecting and exploratory thinking, and improve the efficiency of knowledge acquisition and application.
In addition, building blocks also cultivate a variety of comprehensive literacy beyond disciplinary knowledge in the process of interdisciplinary building, including teamwork ability, communication ability, innovation ability and anti-frustration ability. Most brick building activities can be carried out in groups—children divide tasks, communicate ideas, and cooperate to complete the building task, which exercises their teamwork and communication ability. When the group’s building plan is not ideal, children need to put forward innovative ideas and adjust the plan together, which spurs their innovation ability. When the work collapses or fails repeatedly, children learn to face failure, analyze the reasons and rebuild, which cultivates their anti-frustration ability and resilience. These comprehensive literacy are not the content of a single STEAM discipline, but are essential for children’s future study, work and life. Building blocks integrate the cultivation of these literacy into interdisciplinary learning, realizing the organic combination of knowledge learning and ability training.