Initiating Community STEM In West Africa

InsightSTEM West Africa Family and Community STEM held it first Community STEM exploration event at SMART LIBERIA hall (9^th street, Sinkor). This event brings together 18 parents and 16 kids from various communities to engage in exploration activities. This event marks the first of its kind in West Africa with support from InsightSTEM.

Our West African coordinator (Simmie S. Nyanfor, Jr.) presented an overview of InsightSTEM and pending family and community STEM programs to be implemented in West Africa. Meanwhile, the director for Family and Community STEM and KinderSTEM  in West Africa (Johnnason L. David, Jr.) explained to parents and kids the differences between Family STEM, Community STEM, and KinderSTEM as its related to the work of InsightSTEM in West Africa.

He clearly stated that Family STEM is a series of events where parents and kids engage STEM explorations and learn to learn together, He also explained that Community STEM Explorations are considered to be one off events for adults and kids to engage together in STEM exploration. KinderSTEM is another initiative where InsightSTEM works with teachers working with the youngest kids in the education system aged 4-6 yrs old.

In this event the community members did three STEM explorations: Blobs in the Bottle,  Fizz-inflator, and Build the Tallest Tower. Adults and kids alike were engaged in these activities working together to find the best solutions!

Our Community STEM activities were all designed to engage individuals in STEM exploration, and to democratize STEM knowledge to all, young and old, through exploration.

Book of the Month (January 2015)

Each month we will recommend a book related to learning STEM topics through exploration, and we will host an online book discussion around the middle of the month -- we hope you can join us remotely with a glass of wine and a snack to discuss the book we have been reading. Please follow the provided links to order the book, as that allows us to generate a little extra revenue to support the programs of InsightSTEM at no extra cost to you!

Book for January 2015: Talking Their Way into Science
Karen Gallas (1995) Teachers College Press: New York, NY

Buy the Book -- Register for Discussion

This book is an excellent guide to classroom dialogs about scientific thought. While based on an early elementary classroom setting the messages in the book are relevant to science instructors at all levels (including parents working with their families, and educators in out-of-school settings). Anyone who wants to talk with people about science and explore their thinking will gain a lot from this book.

This has been one of my personal favorites for over a decade, and the messages have remained relevant over that whole time. Karen Gallas explains beautifully the "Science Talks" that regularly occur in her classrooms, including how to deal with questions that are just too hard. (I know well from my own experience that Kindergarten kids can ask seemingly innocent questions that are still on the unknown boundaries of science.)

One of the most enjoyable parts of the book are the actual classroom narratives that are threaded through the text revealing both the complex level of thinking that even these very young students are capable of -- and how extract that thinking through dialog, and then create learning moments fitting to their developing understandings.

Order Here:
Talking Their Way into Science: Hearing Children's Questions and Theories, Responding With Curricula (Language and Literacy Series (Teachers College ... in Contemporary Educational Thought)

Book-Club Discussion:
Register for the online discussion, to be held at 4pm PST/5pm MST/6pm CST/7pm EST on January 13, 2015

Borman Elementary: Exploring STEM from Kindergarten

Students at Borman dedicate their "be kind" mural (USAF)

An excellent afternoon yesterday at Borman Elementary School on the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. I (Jake) began to meet with the Kinder team's classes, and explore their classrooms in preparation for our planned partnership to help the children and teachers to learn science through active exploration leveraging their existing resources for maximum effectiveness.

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base (USAF)

We are very excited to have the opportunity to work with the Kinder team at Borman and offer them continuing support -- which we then hope will result in strategies that can be spread across other kindergarten classrooms, not only in the US, but also providing resources that could be used by schools on US military bases worldwide.

Supporting STEM exploration in kindergarten is essential to develop learners who are investigative, creative, inquiring thinkers from the very start of their education -- sparking interests that can last the lifetime of their school experiences, and beyond.

(Support for this program is provided from the InsightSTEM general funds, contributions can be made at www.gofundme.com/InsightSTEM)