Digital Oppdragsrapport 02.05.24: STEM Teacher Training 2024
Project and background
The need for knowledge in STEM-subjects is increasing, and the lack of this type of competence has significant negative consequences for economic growth and increased welfare. More and better STEM-education is essential to solve many of the major challenges we face today, such as poverty, food security, disease prevention and climate change. However, local teachers often lack the tools to make the education practical and inspiring and students need to develop creative thinking and analytical skills.
Together with the Scientist Factory (Forskerfabrikken), we developed the “STEM Without Borders” project, to develop teacher trainings in exploratory science and contribute to making STEM-education practical, inspiring and engaging for both teachers and students. We aim to develop a concept to retrain teachers in exploratory and activity-based natural sciences education, in countries where this form of teaching is not traditionally used.
The assignment
We conducted a 7-day STEM Teacher Training in Kenya to inspire, engage and teach exploratory, activity-based science. The Scientist Factory donated science equipment to the schools and developed teaching materials tailored to the Kenyan syllabus for grade 7 and 8. Our volunteers hosted the trainings, acting as instructors for the teacher training. They demonstrated science experiments, introduced new activities in creative thinking, mathematics, and biology and together with the teachers, applied the activities in the classroom.
The volunteers will present their work, followed by a Q&A-session.
Note: the presentation is at 3 pm CEST