Integrated STEM activities are espoused as appropriate for enhancing student learning in relation to statistical concepts; however, a greater understanding of the way in which students’ ideas about those concepts develop is needed to maximise the learning potential offered by engagement in STEM activities. For this study, plant growth was chosen as a topic from the Year 6 Australian Science Curriculum as an appropriate context to employ aspects of the four STEM disciplines to explore students’ developing ideas about variation. Sixty-four Year 6 students across three school terms worked in groups of four to trial various treatments and their effects on the growth of radish or wheat seeds. This report considers two aspects of student learning related to this topic based on (i) the formative assessment of features of students’ workbook entries specifically related to variation during the part of the classroom activity based on their TinkerPlots graphs and (ii) the later summative evidence of learning in responses to end-of-year questions on the activity for 56 of the students. The workbook entries are presented via a qualitative analysis to provide evidence of the forming of understanding of variation in a STEM context, with the SOLO Taxonomy being employed to assess the longer-term evidence and developmental nature of that learning. Overall, a broader picture has emerged of the potential for developing appreciation of variation in a STEM context in primary school.

支持综合 STEM 活动，以加强学生对统计概念的学习；然而，需要更深入地了解学生对这些概念的想法是如何发展的，以最大限度地发挥参与 STEM 活动所提供的学习潜力。在这项研究中，植物生长被选为 6 年级澳大利亚科学课程的主题，作为适当的背景，利用四个 STEM 学科的各个方面来探索学生关于变异的发展想法。三个学期的 64 名 6 年级学生以四人一组的方式工作，以试验各种治疗方法及其对萝卜或小麦种子生长的影响。TinkerPlots图表和 (ii) 56 名学生在回答年终问题时学习的总结性证据。工作簿条目通过定性分析提供证据，证明在 STEM 环境中形成对变异的理解，并采用 SOLO 分类法来评估该学习的长期证据和发展性质。总体而言，在小学 STEM 环境中发展对变异的认识的潜力已经出现了更广泛的图景。