Martin Mullan

Edtech 551 Module 5 Assignment 1

Fall 2013

STEM Club Refugees

Needs Assessment

Element 1: Storm City International School has a student organised and managed funding group called Interact; there is no teacher input or guidance. “Interact is a club for young people ages 12-18 who want to join together to tackle the issues in their community that they care most about. Through Interact, the students: (1) carry out hands-on service projects; (2) make international connections; (3) develop leadership skills; (4) have fun!”. (Rotary International, 2013).  Interact currently has 44 students from Year 7 to 13; 6% of the student population. This semester Interact is raising funds for Breast Cancer and starting in the second semester want to work to improve the lives of students their age in the local community.  Interact needs a connection to the local community.

Element 2: Storm City International School has a strategic objective of acquiring the “Green Flag Award” from Eco-Schools; the school currently has a Bronze Award. The criteria for the award falls under the following headings: Eco-Committee, Environmental Review, Action Plan, Linking to the Curriculum, Involving the Whole School and Wider Community, Monitoring and Evaluation, Eco-Code, Project Work.

These criteria have multiple sub-sections including:

• The school shares good practice and supports others within their Eco-Community (e.g. local Eco-Centres and homes)
• The school for the first application has completed in-depth work on at least three of the Eco-Schools nine topics, one of which must be energy

Storm City International School is working towards this goal and STEM Club projects will be a stepping stone toward this.

Element 3: The British Government is in the process of reviewing the GCSE, AS and A Level examinations. A recommendation from Sir Mark Walport, Chair of the Council for Science and Technology (Council of Science and Technology, 2013), suggests that STEM clubs and projects are a vehicle to enhancing the practical skills in students expected by universities.  

Enhancing the STEM provision at Storm City International School will pre-empt the changes that are about to affect the teaching of science, technology and mathematics in the UK.

Element 4: Storm City International School is working with the Association of British Women in Malaysia to provide science education to a group of eight Myanmar refugees (ABWMag, March and May 2013). Refugee students visit Storm City International School for one hour per week to use the science labs and interact with English speaking 6th Form students. Two of the eight refugees want to go to university in England; by interacting with Alice Smith School students (5% of which will, on average, go to Cambridge University), the refugee students learn from the attitudes of successful international students. The one hour per week contact between the students does not facilitate the skills acquisition of on-going cooperation, collaboration and communication; this provision needs to be extended through an anytime, anywhere model.

The refugee students are enrolled at the Dignity for Children Foundation Learning Centre. Dignity’s mission is “to empower poor children to break the cycle of poverty through quality education to impact generations.”  In 2011, Dignity had 156 children in their secondary school. Dignity’s teaching faculty are volunteers and are qualified to teach primary school age students; to provide for their older students Dignity established contact with World Virtual School (WVS), USA to explore the possibility of conducting 4 year online courses based on the US high school syllabus. 

Dignity believes that poor people must stay in education in order to break the cycle of poverty. Through a closer relationship with the Dignity for Children Foundation, Storm City International School can offer more for the refugees and other poor students at Dignity while meeting the needs of the Interact Club, the Eco-Schools initiative, and the impending STEM reforms in the British education system.

This grant request is aimed at providing physical (building resources) and technological (tablet 3G capable devices) resources in order to build a joint STEM project at both schools, enhancing the science education and future opportunities of all students involved.

References:

Council of Science and Technology, (2013). Stem Education in Schools. (Retrieved from: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/230509/13-1131-stem-education.pdf)

Eco-Schools, (2013). Green Flag Award Criteria. (Retrieved from: http://www2.keepbritaintidy.org/ecoschools/applyforanaward/greenflag/greenflagcriteria)

Rotary International, (2013). Interact. (Retrieved from: https://www.rotary.org/en/learning-reference/learn-topic/interact)