“STEM” stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM can refer to the discipline individually or when two or more disciplines are intentionally emphasized.
Why STEM Is Important?
According to the U. S. Department of Commerce, STEM occupations are growing at 17%, while other occupations are growing at 9.8%. STEM degree holders have a higher income even in non-STEM careers. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics workers play a key role in the sustained growth and stability of the U.S. economy, and are a critical component to helping the U.S. win the future. STEM education creates critical thinkers, increases science literacy, and enables the next generation of innovators.
How we define STEM?
We believe that having science content as the hub of an integrated approach allows children to have the foundation needed for the more advanced thinking and application. We also believe that Mathematics is the foundation of Science and Technology. Hence, Mathematics and Science are the two important disciplines that young children should be exposed first and progressively introduce and integrate other disciplines into the learning process with clear learning outcomes.
Computational thinking is another important discipline in STEM education as it involves the thinking process, and it is a specific type of problem solving that involves distinct skills (ie abstraction, algorithmic thinking, generalization, decomposition and debugging). We can then suggest real world problems for these young children to solve by integrating these disciplines through project-approach or problem based learning involving design thinking process.
During this experiential learning process, we will be able to nurture the scientific practices (asking questions, developing a model, planning and conducting investigation, analysing data, communicating, problem solving and etc.) and positive attitudes towards STEM learning.
For these young children, we focus on STEM learning through exploration, play and building curiosity about the natural world and the way things work. Children will be actively involved in hands-on experiential learning by working on their projects trying to solve real world problems. STEM learning is important for everyone and can happen anytime, anywhere. The real-life skills that people develop when learning STEM help everyone to be a better problem-solvers and learners.