STEAMLabs Africa facilitated a STEAM Innovation Week at Woodcreek International School.
Woodcreek is a Nairobi-based IGCSE school that prides itself on enabling and empowering its students. It does this by encouraging students to explore new subjects, technologies and ways of learning. To this end, Mr Peter Muchine (Design Technology teacher at Woodcreek) invited STEAMLabs Africa to introduce STEAM education to 11–16-year-olds over the course of three days. The Innovation Week was designed with two objectives in mind; (1) building student interest in STEAM subjects and approaches to learning and; (2) demonstrating how effective, accessible and relevant STEAM education can be to the institution.
Here’s how it went.
Day 1
On the first day, 14th Mar, we focused on Mathematics, in honour of Pi Day. We introduced the students to micro:bit and showed them how to build and code dice using micro:bit. Then, we challenged them to correctly roll the first 10 digits of pi (3.141592653), as fast as possible. After each round, we encouraged the students to make adjustments to their code to improve its’ efficiency.
Day 2
On the second day, 16th Mar, we turned our focus to science and technology. The goal was, as one of our trainers (Tim) described, to “encourage students to develop their critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity skills while also learning about 3D design, engineering, and prototyping.” As such, students from Woodcreek International, Arya Vedic Academy, Crawford International Academy, Moi Forces Academy Lane spent some time tinkering with TinkerCAD.
TinkerCAD is an easy-to-use software that provides students with a platform to create 3D designs and models using simple shapes and blocks, allowing them to bring ideas to life. TinkerCAD has complete, simple, and useful tutorials to begin with. As a result, it’s a great tool for students to dig into their own exploration of the world of 3D models. This is perfect for Woodcreek, where students are encouraged to direct and seize control of their own learning experiences. As a warm-up activity, students were asked to imagine that they were stuck in a room for an indeterminate amount of time. Students were then asked to design a room in TinkerCAD that would keep them busy. We encouraged them to incorporate the luxuries and comforts they would want to keep themselves busy, as they waited for help. Their designs were “beautiful and innovative.”
Thereafter, students were encouraged to put their new skills to the test in a competition. First, students were asked to reflect on the world around them and point out instances of inequality. Using these examples, they explored what inequality is, what it is not, how it operates in society and what role technology can play in reducing inequality. After these discussions, students were challenged to create a solution that targets one aspect of inequality. What they came up with, left us speechless and hopeful. STEAMLabs Africa Lead Trainer Nicole, and judge for the competition, said, “We got amazing projects that offered solutions to social, gender, economics and many other inequalities that they noticed.”
Out of the 20 projects the students developed, we will highlight three.
- Housing the Homeless: One group, using common sense logic and empathy, addressed homelessness by providing housing, through home pods, and income to unhoused people in Nairobi.
- Restoring the Dignity of Farmers: Another group looked at the lack of living wages in the farming sector. So they designed a farmhouse with a hydro mill that generated electricity for the house and water supply for the farm. This group went as far as to build a working prototype.
- Home Security: Finally, another group looked at gendered violence and built and coded a security robot for women living alone. When it detects movement it goes to the appropriate room, and streams live video to the owner’s phone. If the movement is from an intruder, the owner will be able to alert the police from their phone.
Each of these projects builds upon the skills students developed in the first two days of Innovation Week. They also challenged students to relate this new knowledge to other subjects and existing teamwork and creative skills, while applying them to the world around them.
Day 3
On the third day (17 Mar), we focused on the Arts and game design. We spent some time using Bee-Bot to introduce students to programming.
Bee-Bot is a programmable floor robot that allows students to learn about sequencing, estimation and problem-solving as they figure out how to make it move. We asked students to create a floor map and code their Bee around their map and the activity was a huge hit! Working in groups, they worked out how to use Bee-Bot and were given the space to experiment and test their newfound skills.
The second activity used micro:bit to programme an arcade classic: Space Invaders. Space Invaders is a fixed shooter game where the player moves a laser cannon horizontally across the bottom of the screen and fires at aliens overhead. The more aliens you hit, the more points you get. After coaching students through programming this game, Afandi Indiatsi challenged the students to beat her high score; 150 points in 20 minutes. Unfortunately, no one came close, leaving Afandi the undisputed champion. While giving the students a reason to keep experimenting with and familiarising themselves with micro:bit.
By the end of the week, Woodcreek students were introduced to STEAM education, and were shown how they can incorporate it into their day-to-day learning activities. But, as Afandi notes, “we still have a lot of work to do, in terms of introducing tech in schools and engaging students and teachers.” The Innovation Week at Woodcreek was an important first step.
It brought STEAM education to a new learning environment in a way that was accessible, relevant and actionable. We did not just say “You should use STEAM education,” we showed them how it could be done. This brought us a step closer to realising our mission to equip African students, teachers, and communities with the necessary digital skills to compete in the global economy of the future.
If you’re interested in introducing STEAM education to your students, reach out to us.
