Boosting STEM learning experiences using a multi-project approach
Engineering Educates Farmvention Challenge has been out for well over a year now, and it’s interesting to share the different ways that schools have approached it. In this blog, Salusbury Primary School inspire us to use the resources within a multi-project offer to pupils.
Each of the Farmvention pathway resources are segmeneted into 5 different areas algined to Maths, Science, D&T and Computing. They can be used as a full 6-week project, or in a bitesized way, taking key parts that suit your interests and time.
For this school, the EngEd Farmvention resources complemented the NFU’s STEMterprise resources to offer the whole school tailored experiences from Early Years to upper primary. This realised their vision to grow a generation of children who can go on to change the world. A STEM week ended with a fair that showcased the pupils’ work to families.
The Engineering Design Process was a thread that ran across all the experiences.
The school were delighted with the ease of use of the Engineering Educates Farmvention resources, explaining they provided clear guidance along with straight forward lesson planning.
Salusbury Primary School is a large primary school in Queen’s Park, Brent, London with over 700 pupils and staff, who between them speak 42 languages and have a huge range of skills and talents. As an inner city school making connection with nature is often difficult so this was an opportunity not to be missed.
In the STEM subjects, the children are given the opportunity to develop their global perspective and begin on the journey to understanding the big challenges that face the world and their local community. This is done by building on their sense of inquisitiveness and encouraging the children to ask and also answer their own questions.
“There was a well-planned and engaging activity for each day that connected to the theme as well as the activities from previous days. The content was relevant to the real world and students were able to connect their learning to everyday life.” Salusbury Teacher
The pragmatic combination of great engineering experiences for all ages!
Using STEMterpise resources: 5-7 year old pupils used a combination of STEM skills from creating, making and tasting yoghurt samples, to designing the packaging and business acumen to sell fruit flag yoghurts to their parents.
7-9 years old pupils took on the Soil Defenders pathway using Session 1 to apply their maths skills in a real-world context. Pupils reviewed data about land use in the UK and made connections between the data and types of spaces, and how these affected the choices farmers made about cattle or arable farming.
Additional opportunities for investigations were clear in the EngEd Farmvention Challenge, enabling pupils to work scientifically to explore soil compaction and seaweed fermentation.
Coincidentally, this coincided with the launch by the Bill Gates Foundation of their new business initiative to use seaweed extract for reducing methane emissions in cows. This created more excitement with the children and allowed them to see even more clearly the relevance to what they were learning.
“I really loved how we experienced what real farmers face in their real-life challenges and that we designed our own farms! Maybe in the future we can help the world to be a better place - there is still hope for our planet.”
Impact in numbers
After this whole-school STEM project 70% of 5-7 year old pupils that took part said that they saw themselves in a STEM career when they grew up.
An even greater percentage of 85% of 9-11 year old pupils would consider a STEM related job in the future.
The impact of this project continued beyond the STEM week with the displays created from the pupils work visible in the school canteen where the children reflect on the images and what they learnt during the week.
“ It was awesome! I want to become a STEM scientist when I grow up.”
“‘Absolutely loved seeing the Science and Art (DT) connections with the barn. Very happy that they are learning about climate change.’”
Feeling inspired?
The challenge will be live on the website for a little longer - then we’ll be transferring all resources for use over time. Keep in touch with the team on fascinate@manchester.ac.uk