Cultivating a scientific inquiry mindset in all students
What springs to mind when you come across STEM education? In primary and secondary school, STEM-related subjects are often associated with theories and complex calculations. As such, many students may develop fear towards these subjects long before discovering the fun in STEM. As a Food and Nutritional Sciences graduate herself, Percy intends to let her students explore the relatedness of STEM and daily life, and eventually arouse their interest in it.
Bringing STEM closer to students
Science is closely related to our everyday life. Taking food and nutritional sciences as an example, we eat, drink and consume various nutrients every day. Moreover, STEM education equips students with a mindset that embraces discovery, investigation, and critical thinking. In addition, Percy observed that devotion of resources to STEM education at school are usually focused on senior students who have chosen STEM-related subjects as DSE electives. Students who have not shown interest in these subjects are usually left out from opportunities to rebuild their relationships with STEM. With these in mind, Percy decided to bring what she has learnt only in university to secondary school and made STEM education accessible to all students without the limitation of their subject selection . She designed a series of Food and Health Sciences activities at school.
The principal and teachers appreciated Percy’s enthusiasm in bringing new ideas to the school using her expertise and unique observations. Students became more proactive in raising questions and ideas in STEM class. To create further impact, Percy was entrusted and given the opportunity to add into the STEM curriculum with Food and Health Sciences section, with the aim to cultivate the scientific inquiry mindset of students universally at the school.
Curiosity is the secret sauce to STEM
Given that the students do not have a strong interest or understanding in STEM related subjects and activities, Percy started off with small steps and amplified them gradually instead of attempting to make a big project. One key mission of STEM education is to cultivate students with a scientific inquiry mindset facing their surroundings. As such, Percy first built a butterfly-friendly garden at school. One of the participants was a girl who usually disengage in lessons and was considered unmotivated. Much to Percy’s surprise, she actively participated in the activity and even went to school during the Christmas holiday to take care of the garden. She found this activity very unique from her prior experience of STEM in usual classroom or extracurricular activities. She enjoyed constantly learning and making progress through her observations in the garden. From this experience, Percy was more certain that arousing curiosity through STEM activities allows students to be more experimental and motivated in learning. Only when students have a genuine learning interest towards STEM related subjects, they could meaningfully benefit from the increasingly available STEM-learning resources for their planning of senior high school and university path.
Education and science are both the training of the mind to think
Education and science are quite similar in some sense. It is less about the learning of facts but the training of the mind to think. Percy hopes her students to not approach STEM as mere subjects but a mindset. Just like how scientists often have to question existing theories and discover new ones, STEM education should not be associated only with theories and calculations. Students are allowed to observe, question, think flexibly about problems, and generate creative ideas.
Reflecting upon her Fellowship journey, Percy also realized that education and science are both ever-changing. Educators should always look for innovative ways to improve teaching and learning experiences that not only broaden students' horizons but also enable them to develop a stronger interest in learning. This whole process starts from understanding the needs of students empathetically and continues to trial and error with an entrepreneurial spirit.