AFRICAN STE(E)M
LINKING PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TO STEEM SKILLS
STE(E)M skills and insights promote excellence for the Future World of Work.
LEARN CIRCUIT DESIGN USING BARE CONDUCTIVE PAINT AND COPPER FOIL LINES.
We have added and additional ‘E’ to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) so that we can harnesses our uniquely African power and energy. This aims to create a collaborative and inclusive platform for future work, promoting a flexible and resilient problem solving mindset. This extra ‘E’ includes the humanistic power of:
Entrepreneur
Electronics
Empowerment
Engagement
Expressive voice
Empathy, ... and much, much more.
We use an Innovative Tech Skills approach to harness the untapped power of our African vision, power and purpose.
We will need a transforming Win-4-All mindset to stay relevant
TOZAMA OGUNLEYE CELEBRATES STEEM FOR WOMEN.
If we are to prosper in the future, we will need to build flexible and adaptive learning skills, supported by a transforming mental lens and build personal mental mastery to safely navigate the volatile shifts.
Advances in tech locally and globally and the impact of the power of social media has shown that an inclusive, Win-4 All mental lens helps to promote a flexibly sustainable business culture, allowing us to adapt quickly to the shifts and opportunities as they arise.
We need to replace the out-dated last century’s dominantly Left-Brain, Quick-Win approach. We now need solutions that are inclusive, collaborative and adaptive - whole brain solutions for the good of all.
This then includes people and elements in The Circular Economy.
African STE(E)M access for our youth who are under-served.
ROBOTIC CYCLIST MADE FORM PLASTIC BAGS AND SCRAP METAL
The Urgent need for STE(E)M skills in Africa
The Gates Foundation revealed that in the future, Africa will be the youngest continent in world, making the need for developing a positive and problem solving mindset essential, for resilience in situations of high uncertainty.
Our THORT project is introducing STE(E)M skills and a problems solving mindset to youth in Africa that are currently under-served. We are exploring ways to share African STE(E)M skills with them, accompanied by problem solving group workouts so they design solutions for real world problems and people.
And all the while they will be introduced to tech thinking and coding skills.
Watch this exciting space!
Youth learn simple coding processes and skills to prepare for the Future World of Work.
We begin learning coding by learning to make a constructed form move at your bidding.
Choose a simple form or character, then download and printing it on 300 weight card. Now you are ready to make it come alive with Circuit Design and Code.
Introducing the principles of code
MIT designed a simple way to learn to code, by simply dragging and dropping blocks that contain sequential instructions.
We often use Microsoft MakeCode and other systems to introduce the concept of code to a beginner.
Once they are familiar with the process, we take the people who want to explore more complex forms of coding into Micro Python the Python 3 or 4. Form here is an Open future of learning!
Innovative Tech skills for groups or teams
Tomorrow’s leaders and engineers will need to develop strong innovative and collaborative skills and mindset to navigate ongoing change. We explore ways to build these skills in a group building process.
We use a design thinking process to identify what is the specific challenge they wish to solve. Next, they identify their team vision then choose a symbol to give it visible form. Finally they construct it using cardboard, plastic or discarded material from their environment.
The finished construction is then attached to a bot. Finally, learn simple coding to make it move at your command.
But perhaps the most important skill learnt here is the freedom that open source and online learning gives you to continually grow and learn as your interests and the world changes over time.
Examples of interesting local STEM initiatives. More to follow soon …
We are proud to collaborate with leading innovative schools in South Africa and together we can forge a new path forward towards preparing our youth for the future world of work and solving real world problems that have a real impact in the world, hopefully changing it for good.
(Note: This list is in the process of being compiled.)
Redhill School incorporates STEM into their curriculum.
They describe STEM as a ‘cross-disciplinary pedagogical integrative philosophy’.
They describe the fastest growing skills shortage in history resulting in part by an education system that can’t keep up with the fast-changing world. So it is not unexpected that the fastest growing skill sector in the world is now in STEM-related industries.
With this in mind, Redhill has boldly incorporated STEM as an integral part of its curriculum, specifically in Grades 7 and 8. They also aim to embed skills for functional confidence in technology as a guiding principal across the school. Management and staff at the school have a dedicated time on the timetable for STEM initiatives. This usually takes place through the means of Project-Based Learning where they focus on impacting real world problems in a positive way.
St Mary’s School for Girls holds an e4 programme in Form I
They too add an “e” prefix to STEM type skills, suggesting advancement and a move towards change, including incorporating technology into teaching and learning. And they emphasize the need for a MYndful self awareness and self management.
Staff have crafted a unique learning programme for the Form 1 pupils, which has been aptly called the “e4 Curriculum”. This represents an “effective, engaging, exciting and enriching” approach, drawing on current educational pedagogy and practice-based research to suit 21st century needs. This aims to foster a creative and innovative approach to teaching and learning in line with the needs of the country. They place a particular focus on preparing pupils for their contribution to a broader global society and, importantly, towards their own self-fulfilment.
The P-STEM Foundation
They are a STEM organisation, ‘in love with getting more Southern African youth into the growing arena of STEM’. They aim to create access to Stem skills especially for youth from less advantaged communities.
While they see STEM skills as creating a path to stimulating and creative careers opportunities, they also see our growing youth unemployment problem, and with 1 in 3 careers being in STEM, also a skills shortage.
Vari Mureriwa, managing director of the P-STEM Foundation, emphasises the importance of creativity in STEM. She says: “The dialogue needs to shift in order to be more encompassing,” she says, “but at the same time the innovations need to be able to meet people where they are.”
P-STEM Foundation is connecting students with STEM role models by running STEM community days in rural communities, shifting from the idea that schools and governments are the center of education to more acknowledging the community’s role.
Waverley Girls' High -Dell Solar-powered lab
The solar-powered classrooms will encourage and prepare girls to enter the IT industry. Waverley Girls' High School in Johannesburg has become the latest recipient of Dell's solar-powered learning lab.
As part of Dell's 2020 Legacy of Good Plan, the solar-powered labs provide technology access to more than 5 000 underprivileged students in communities where technology infrastructure is limited.In a statement, Dell says the learning lab at Waverley Girls' High will provide technology and connectivity to hundreds of girls from underserved communities in Alexandria and Hillbrow.
The partnership at the school is only one of the projects Dell and Sci-Bono have collaborated on, according to the statement.
Natasha Reuben, head of transformation at Dell South Africa, says: "Providing world-class education is an ongoing challenge across the developing world, including Africa, South America and Asia. The stakes are too high - education is too important - which is why Dell takes this challenge very seriously."
According to Dell, the labs are constructed inside standard shipping containers, using Dell's Wyse thin client computers and Dell PowerEdge servers to create a computer-empowered learning space.
Solar panels take care of power requirements, while the computers use cloud technologies to run the latest Windows Office systems. The setup is also highly efficient, with each workstation requiring less than seven watts of power, as opposed to 180 watts for a typical PC, says the company.
Reuben states: "Dell developed solar-powered learning labs through a pilot phase in Nigeria in 2013. It has shaped up so well that there are now 10 similar sites in Africa, as well as a new site in Colombia.
"The concept works brilliantly. Instead of throwing technology at teachers and students, we looked at how to solve their problems. A learning lab offers a classroom supported by new technologies and is entirely self-sustaining. It adapts the digital world for them, not the other way around."
STEM as a global wave
STEM is now included in many of the top performing schools and universities in the world.
The United States now builds it into their education philosophy and practice, as they attempt to prepare students for the uncertain and changing future world of work.
European countries, such as Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom offer strong support structures introducing teachers to new practices.
South Africa also has STEM initiatives, but mainly in top performing schools.
Our MYndWorks project now aims to introduce STE(E)M skills and a problems solving mindset - one that is agile and resilient in situations of high uncertainty - to schools that are less advantaged in Africa.