KILCREGGAN Primary school pupils have been getting inspired as the school’s STEM – science, technology, engineering and maths – programme gathers pace.
Youngsters have been taking part in the Young STEM Leader (YSL) programme over the past 18 months.
Prior to the first lockdown in 2020, pupils had been exploring the use of digital classrooms to improve collaboration, evidence learning and raise digital literacy. As a class, P6/7 created a Google site to record and share various activities they had been undertaking with the rest of the school and to show off a whole-school interactive science fair they planned and delivered.
Pupils then moved on to work through the four stages of the non-formal Young STEM Leader Programme.
They began by looking at the Discover badge and decided they would like to expand this resource to demonstrate an understanding of stereotypes, diversity and the STEM career opportunities available to pupils, incorporating literacy skills, researching, note taking, organising information and using information and communications technology.
As time progressed they looked to the Inspire badge, where pupils chose to explore women throughout history who have had an impact on STEM development across the world, such as Gladys West, an American mathematician who contributed to the mathematical modelling of the shape of the Earth.
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In addition, the pupils interviewed STEM ambassador and polar explorer Craig Mathieson, with the results again shared with the whole school.
During the first lockdown, pupils decided to create video content with instructions and in some cases downloadable resources.
These were shared with and used by pupils across the school during lockdown – and when pupils returned to school some accessed these in their own time in the absence of face-to-face after school clubs.
Having achieved their YSL2 award, pupils returned to school after the second lockdown in the spring of this year, keen to progress and develop their work.
With continuing restrictions on face-to-face interaction, pupils decided to create outdoor numeracy challenge workshops.
They plan to develop these and share them on the ever-growing STEM Google site to offer challenge and reinforcement for learning at home.
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