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74 teachwire.net/secondary POTENTIAL Unleash your STEM Thandiwe Banda talks us through the challenges of teaching STEM, and how the right extra-curricular activities can provide great opportunities for better engagement W hen I graduated from university with a degree in medical molecular microbiology, I had to decide whether I wanted to enter the scientific field or pursue other interests. I loved science, but looking at the jobs available, I quickly realised I didn’t have the necessary skills required for professional scientific roles, and despite six years of higher education, I hadn’t been taught how to undertake proper research, read journals, or conduct experiments. Since then, I’ve committed myself to ensuring that future generations develop the skills they’ll need to pursue a wide variety of careers by teaching STEM in schools effectively. Adequately introducing STEM into schools has presented a challenge in recent years, with many schools not yet fully investing in these subjects. As a result, teachers who wish to engage their pupils in STEM subjects must adopt new and innovative strategies to adapt to the nature and style of scientific teaching. Traditional STEM education tends to be driven by curriculum completion and heavily based in theory, thus restricting the agency of teachers in the classroom. In my opinion, over time this will result in students developing poor mental maths and coding skills. Correcting these attainment issues is time consuming, and can lead to teachers spending considerable amounts of time working outside school hours. Similarly, it doesn’t ignite students to feel inspired to study STEM subjects, resulting in a clear lack of student engagement. In my experience, the key to overcoming these challenges is finding opportunities that apply STEM in a practical and theoretical manner, expose students to role models and show them the potential of what they can achieve through STEM. The value of extra- curricular activities A common criticism of STEM teaching is that the classroom experience doesn’t match its practical applications in the real world. With this in mind, extracurricular activities are a good way of encouraging greater student engagement with STEM. After-school and lunchtime clubs, the Young Engineers youth group (see young- engineers.co.uk ) and STEM clubs help to both attract more students to these subjects and address the deficit of women entering the field. What’s more, I’ve found that students’ interest is piqued in the context of competitions like the British Science Association’s Youth Industrial Strategy Competition (awards.yisc. org.uk ), which aims to inspire students with their STEM studies by providing learning opportunities through a range of real world issues, including artificial intelligence and data, an ageing society, clean growth, and the future of mobility. I know from my own experience just how beneficial this competition can be for my students, as it’s informative, challenging and fun. The Competition is also hugely beneficial for educators, as it integrates a lot of STEM criteria and employability skills and additionally uses the Gatsby benchmarks. Global citizens Initiatives like the Youth Industrial Strategic Competition also have broad appeal across a wide range of students’ interests, in that they encourage “Traditional STEMeducation tends tobedrivenby curriculumcompletionand heavilybased intheory” cross-collaboration across different specialities. At our school we’ve entered seven teams into the Competition and found that our students have demonstrated a great deal of interest in the AI challenge, but we’re now stretching them even further by asking them to also address the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). How, for example, can they use AI to improve water sanitation by 2030? Introducing this additional challenge is proving beneficial for our students, because it exposes them to the implications of their work whilst broadening their STEM learning. Some of my students have developed mosquito repellents, sustainable water filters and tracking aids for the elderly, and have used waste coffee as an agricultural organic fertiliser. Taking part in the Competition and pairing the experience with the SDGs has given our students a better understanding of the diverse and global impact that STEM can have in shaping the future. Competitions like these further benefit students by ensuring they possess valuable workplace skills and developing them as global citizens. The students are able to see the positive impact they’re able to have on people’s lives and develop their cultural capital in school. The extra-curricular