STEM is life

STEM is literally everywhere in our lives.  It encompasses everything around us, from things that we use every day to natural laws. Did you use a smart phone today? Did you cook anything? Have you thought about where your clothes come from?  Someone designed and engineered your outfits. They used science to consider the appropriate fabric, mathematics skills to calculate the amount of fabric needed, and they probably used technology to sew. In 2013 Australia's chief scientist at the time, Professor Ian Chubb, said, "STEM is everywhere. Our nourishment, our safety, our homes and neighbours, our relationships with family and friends, our health, our jobs, our leisure are all profoundly shaped by technological innovation and the discoveries of science."

STEM research (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) is often considered innovative and ground-breaking. However, although there has been an increasing demand and push for STEM approaches in educational institutions over the past decade, there is still so much room for improvement. Young children have an inquisitive nature, they don't memorise steps and their early educational experiences do not come from a cookie-cutter approach. Our education system needs to get better at finding ways to tap into that natural curiosity and hunger for learning that many students usually arrive with. 

My 3 year old visiting my classroom butterflies (we set them free as soon as their wings are ready!)

Think back to your own education experience: what were some of the best things you ever did at school? It is usually always something that had meaning and relevance to you as an individual. Maybe it was something connected to your interests, but whenever I ask others this question it's often something they built or made or created. 

My own favourite memories either have a creative component (anything art related), real-world connections and experiences (exploring rock pool habitats on a Year 5 camp) or they are self-directed projects that I had ownership of. When I was 8 years old I was given a creative writing project where I could write about anything I wanted. I made a collection of short stories called Cat Mischief, I illustrated it and chose red card for the cover page. My teacher laminated the cover and bound it for me and I felt like a real author. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who did "Genius Hour/Passion Projects" before it became a 'thing'! The rest of my experiences as a student were pretty boring in comparison.

So what does that have to do with STEM? Well, in my classroom the STEM framework is a teaching approach, a lens to put over what we already know about what motivates and engages our students. It's a hands-on approach to teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, but there are also opportunities for a very natural integration across the whole curriculum; there are also arts, literacy, geography, humanities.

At my school we're taking what we already know about how students learn: inquiry, project-based learning and design thinking and using that to underpin our approaches to STEM. The STEM framework that we're working from essentially opens up pathways for all of our students regardless of their interests and their different learning needs.  It allows them to play with the possibilities and to really begin to navigate those 21st Century Learning Skills. We are teaching, modelling, practicing the transferable skills of being able to think critically and flexibly to adapt to our rapidly changing world. It goes beyond engagement to empowerment.

It's important to encourage curiosity and reflection in meaningful, authentic ways. This guides our students towards innovative thinking and helps to support the development of life skills in problem-solving and resilience. A big focus for me this year will be to look for mentors and materials beyond the classroom, and to encourage students to learn by creating and making mistakes, and to collaborate and share. Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager, co-authors of the book Invent to Learn, discuss the importance of maker spaces to provide students with hands-on experiences, “We must reimagine school science and math not as a way to prepare students for the next academic challenge, or a future career, but as a place where students are inventors, scientists, and mathematicians today.”

Student voice and student feedback is a really important component of my teaching and learning cycle: "What are you curious or passionate about? What do you want your future to look like? What problems would you need to solve to get there? What skills will you need?" We are all familiar with the adage, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," and I think that's what STEM does.. It's feeding our students for a lifetime.