Working Together: making STEM happen in secondary schools
3 July 2012
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are used in a collaborative way in the real world and this interdisciplinary approach often leads to innovations and important discoveries. However, in schools, the links between these four subjects are often not made clear and this can lead to students not transferring their learning and skills between different subjects: just because they know how to plot a graph in maths, it doesn't mean that they know how to do it in science.
Discussing the real-life applications of STEM subjects and the careers available to STEM students, both within the relevant sectors and also more widely, is also easier and more powerful if the subjects are approached in an interdisciplinary way.
The Wellcome Trust wanted to understand how STEM interdisciplinary learning could be encouraged within schools and to develop a range of teaching and learning ideas that would help students to better understand the connections between the four subjects. To achieve this, bursaries were provided to schools in the London Borough of Camden to develop projects that would span two academic years, starting in September 2009.
The funded schools developed projects suitable for their students and circumstances. Two main approaches were used: delivering enrichment activities and adapting schemes of work to embed the links between STEM subjects into students' everyday learning.
Enrichment activities ranged from after-school 'STEM clubs', with visits to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Royal Institution of Great Britain, to 'STEM weeks' involving activities such as designing and planting a STEM garden and working towards the British Science Association's CREST Award.
Schools that adapted schemes of work did mapping exercises to find links between STEM subjects and generally focused on Key Stage 3, where there is more flexibility over what is taught. This led some schools to develop a series of lessons so that pupils would be working on the same project across all of their STEM subjects for part of the school year.
Projects included 'Rockets' (looking at propulsion, forces, measurements and angles) and 'Solar Cars' (with pupils designing and building the cars). One school developed a STEM logo that was used by teachers on their PowerPoint presentations to indicate when links to other STEM subjects were being made within normal lesson time.
Schools also sought to raise the status of STEM - with displays, STEM quizzes in homework diaries, assemblies, and open evenings for parents and students about subject choices and STEM careers.
An independent evaluation of the Wellcome Trust Camden STEM Initiative by the National Foundation for Educational Research identified several factors that ensured the success of the STEM projects. These included having a designated STEM coordinator, having regular meetings and planning time, providing professional development opportunities to teachers, and using outside professionals, including STEM ambassadors.
Teachers, headteachers, students, evaluators and others came together for a celebration event at the end of the project. Emily Yeomans, Project Manager, Education, at the Wellcome Trust, says: "It was great to hear from the students about their experiences and the effects that the projects had on their aspirations. There were displays of the students' work, from detailed designs for gardens and wind turbines to some of the bird boxes and solar cars that the young people had made. The students were really good at explaining the concepts behind their work and everyone learnt a lot from them."
Two reports have been published: one is a full evaluation of the initiative and the second, ‘Working Together’, describes in more detail the ideas developed by Camden schools. Other schools are now welcome to use this information to develop their own interdisciplinary STEM activities or schemes of work; if you do, we would be interested to hear about it: contact the Trust's Education team.
Image: A student from Parliament Hill School explains to Sir John Holman, Senior Fellow for Education at the Wellcome Trust, how solar cars work. Credit: Wellcome Images
