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What are your thoughts on STEM education in schools? Good, bad and ugly?
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EEVblog:

--- Quote from: laureng on February 15, 2020, 06:27:45 am ---I'm also happy to hear from any current/former teachers, or people who have kids in school and might have seen how their local teacher/school does things.

--- End quote ---

I was invited to give a talk a few months back at a school to Year 7 kids for a STEM week project thing they had. Apparently they were to spend the entire week designing and building a solar air heater.
That's a good thing IMO, it might pick up a few kids who might not have been previously interested in the fields.
The problem always is that only a small percentage of kids are ever going to be interested in STEM stuff regardless of what you do.
The entire year 7 group didn't seem all that engaged, which I expected, but I think it would have been more effective with a smaller group of kids who had already self-selected with an interest in the field.
BTW, I gave them all a lump of coal and went though the calcs of how long that would power their mobile phones, and how much energy it takes to watch PewDiePie on Youtube (trying to keep it relevant  ;D )

And it didn't help when I was told to prepare a talk just on renewable energy (because of their project), and only moments before I went on did I realise it was really a week focusing on careers in STEM  :palm:
nctnico:
I'm not sure teaching is a very rewarding job unless you see it as a calling. Maybe taking some time off from the day job and giving STEM workshops at various schools / universities is more rewarding. You get to interact with the kids but don't have the drama of grades and school politics.
EEVblog:

--- Quote from: steve30 on February 16, 2020, 10:28:52 am ---The Ugly: The fact the people feel the need to lump various subjects together to create unnecessary acronyms like 'STEM'. Though having said that, 'STEM' is probably more of an appropriate combination of subjects than the 'XAS' department that we briefly had at my comprehensive school.
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That can be infuriating sometimes. For example, the first year of engineering my university was deliberately "generic" across electrical, mechanical, and civil for the benefit of the students who had no clue what they wanted to do. Those field trips inspecting civil engineering sites was a real productive use of time for someone who wanted to do electronics  ::)

So yeah, don't teach "STEM", teach the specific subject. If you build it they will come.
coppice:

--- Quote from: steve30 on February 16, 2020, 10:28:52 am ---The Ugly: The fact the people feel the need to lump various subjects together to create unnecessary acronyms like 'STEM'.

--- End quote ---
Many acronyms are dumb and annoying, but STEM is better than most. People are of a similar character across most science and engineering disciplines. Most of those are also mathematically inclined, except perhaps for a lot of the life science people (a lot of biology seems to be held back by an appalling lack of understanding of statistical processes by the average biologist). Technology should essentially be a synonym for engineering, but the word has been corrupted to describe an oddball mix of things that often swings far away from the kinds of things a scientist or engineer is typically attracted to. Nonetheless, as a grouping of similar people and work types STEM is a lot better than most.
coppice:

--- Quote from: EEVblog on February 16, 2020, 12:56:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: steve30 on February 16, 2020, 10:28:52 am ---The Ugly: The fact the people feel the need to lump various subjects together to create unnecessary acronyms like 'STEM'. Though having said that, 'STEM' is probably more of an appropriate combination of subjects than the 'XAS' department that we briefly had at my comprehensive school.
--- End quote ---

That can be infuriating sometimes. For example, the first year of engineering my university was deliberately "generic" across electrical, mechanical, and civil for the benefit of the students who had no clue what they wanted to do. Those field trips inspecting civil engineering sites was a real productive use of time for someone who wanted to do electronics  ::)

So yeah, don't teach "STEM", teach the specific subject. If you build it they will come.

--- End quote ---
I think its good not to specialise an engineering course too early. Electronics doesn't operate in isolation from mechanics, chemistry and other disciplines, and a broad understanding of the mechanics and chemistry of the electronics itself is important for understanding how to put stuff together well. A lot of electronics would be a lot more reliable if electronics engineers had a better understanding of how their products will behave mechanically and chemically as they encounter the real world and age. What I find odd about what you said is that ANY first year university engineering student would be taking field trips of any kind.
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