Martin Mullan

Edtech 551 Module 5 update and Module 6

Fall 2013

STEM Club Refugees

Needs Summary

The Dignity for Children Foundation Learning Centre 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 Learning Centre, 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.

Needs Assessment Much easier to follow!  You've taken care of this, so getting ready for final submission will be easy.

Need 1: The Eco-Committee lack the funds necessary to develop an appropriate project that matches the requirements of the “Green Flag Award”.

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

Need 2: The student organised Interact group lacks the capability to fully realise their community related objectives.

Storm City International School has a student organised and managed funding group called Interact.

“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 Awareness 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 and has identified the Myanmar refugee children that visit the science department at Storm City International School (described further in Element 4) as worthy subjects of their efforts. Interact’s objective is the enhancement of English language speaking by the refugee children and the other children at the Local School the refugees attend.

Need 3: Storm City International School lacks a formal STEM club or cross-curricular project that includes science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The British Government is in the process of reviewing the GCSE, AS and A Level examinations. Need to know what these are. . . 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.

Need 4: The one hour per week contact between the Myanmar refugees and Storm City International School science students does not facilitate the skills acquisition of on-going cooperation, collaboration and communication required to meet the goals of the organising teachers.

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 whom will, on average, go to Cambridge University), the refugee students learn from the attitudes of successful international students.

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.

Goals and Objectives

Looks really good - and I'm catching myself before correcting British spelling!

Just see the few details to clean up before submitting final.

80 of 80

Goal:  To "To provide" is an activity.  Goal is description of how you want the situation to be.  easy fix:  Storm City International School will provide physical (building resources) and technological (tablet 3G capable devices) resources in order to build a joint STEM project at both schools permitting the students at Storm City International School and the Dignity for Children Foundation Centre to connect more fully with each other to enhance the knowledge, understanding and awareness of each other’s lives, and to enhance the experience of the refugees in Malaysia.  

I would argue that the project would enhance the experiences of all students. . . just a thought

Need 1: The Eco-Committee lack the funds necessary to develop an appropriate project that matches the requirements of the “Green Flag Award”.  punctuation inside quotation marks

Objective 1: Within 12 months, the Eco-Committee will design and have installed a Living Wall project that will meet the requirements of the “Green Flag Award”

Using the funds acquired, the Eco-Committee will employ the services cost consideration of an Environmental Engineer/Designer to design a Living Wall installation for Storm City International School and the Dignity for Children Foundation Centre. The Living Walls will use thermal pumps and captured rainwater to deliver water to the plants growing in the framework on the wall. Due to the cooling effect of transpiration - the evaporation of water from the leaves of the plants - the supporting walls of the schools will be cooled. This cooling effect, and the shading caused by the plants, will reduce the need for air conditioning and reduce the electricity expenditure for the buildings.

Funds will be used to buy the equipment needed to create the Living Wall framework, the thermal pumps and the water collectors for both schools. Recycled materials will be sourced and used where possible keeping the cost down and the keeping the project in alignment with its environmental goals.

After the design has been completed and the resources purchased, the Eco-Committee will organise for their Eco-Warriors, the STEM students and the Dignity for Children Foundation students to work together after school to build the frameworks and, with the assistance of the on-site maintenance teams, construct the frameworks, pumps and rainwater collectors. The students will seed the frameworks with appropriate plants and maintain the structure after it is completed and self-sustaining.

Great project -

Need 2: The student organised Interact group lacks the capability to fully realise their community related objectives.

Objective 2: Through working with the science faculty and Eco-Committee, Interact will generate a sustained relationship with the Dignity for Children Foundation Learning Centre, meeting Interact’s four objectives.

Need to add measures and time frame - can you address in narrative

The Interact students are highly motivated individuals that enjoy giving up their time to increase the amount of good in the world. Their objectives of carrying out hands-on service projects, making international connections, developing leadership skills, and having fun will all be met by their involvement in the relationship between Storm City International School and the Dignity for Children Foundation Learning Centre.

By involving the Interact students, the success of the Living Wall project at the Local School will be much higher as these dedicated students are committed to succeeding in everything they do. The inclusion of the Interact students will bring the Myanmar refugee children and the Local school students into contact with several Alice Smith School students on a pathway to Cambridge or Oxford University. By integrating with our students, the refugee and Local school students will see that they can succeed if they apply themselves as our students do. By interacting with the local community and particularly those less fortunate than themselves, Storm City International School students will develop attributes of leadership, community and humility, preparing them for their lives abroad when they leave school.

Need 3: Storm City International School lacks a formal STEM club or cross-curricular project that includes science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Objective 3: Within 12 months, a STEM club will be incorporated into the extra-curricular activities programme and will work with the Eco-Committee to design and install a Living Wall project.

Rather than "within 12 months" use By_________

"within 12 months is a moving target" and is dependent on when the funds are available

In preparation for the reforms within the UK National Curriculum, a STEM Club will be incorporated into the Enrichment and Extra-Curricular Activities at Storm City International School. The STEM Club meet once per week and will undertake real projects that are visible in the school and in the community. The organising teachers will aim to identify cross-curricular links that will be the focus of smaller projects that will aim to be completed each half term.

Along with smaller projects, the STEM club will integrate with the Eco-Committee, Eco-Warriors and the science students involved in the collaboration with the Dignity students to develop the Living Wall project. The STEM Club students will focus on the science involved in making the Living Wall function and be sustainable. The students will evidence their work and contributions in a digital portfolio that will be shared within Storm City International School community and with the STEM Club at the Dignity for Children Foundation Learning Centre.

The STEM/science organising teachers and Eco-Committee will aim to attract attention to the project through the media. This effort will generate awareness within the international school community to the environmental projects and to the plight of the Myanmar refugees; an increase in fund raising for the Dignity for Children Foundation Learning Centre is expected.

Need 4: The one hour per week contact between the Myanmar refugees and Storm City International School science students does not facilitate the skills acquisition of on-going cooperation, collaboration and communication required to meet the goals of the organising teachers.

Objective 4: Through the use of 10 3G enabled tablet devices during the period of the STEM project, the science and Interact students from Storm City International School will sustain a daily dialogue with the Myanmar refugees and students of Dignity for Children Foundation Learning Centre to successfully complete the inter-school STEM Living Wall project.

Currently, students from the Dignity for Children Foundation Learning Centre that visit Storm City International School must travel for 1.5 hours to reach the school. Due to their commitments at home, many of the students cannot afford the time to come to the science department at Alice Smith School.

One of the goals of the Association of British Women in Malaysia is to increase the contact of the refugee students with students their own age who will move on to successful universities. The short time available for the students to interact with each other at Storm City International School is a small step toward the sustainable relationships all parties are interested in fostering.

Storm City International School has full Wi-Fi coverage and has two trolleys of iPads available for the students to use for projects where an evidence portfolio is required. By providing 10 3G enabled tablet devices with Maxis prepaid credit, the refugee students and Dignity students will be able to communicate every day after school to discuss how their STEM projects are progressing. Shared documents on Google Drive and Google Sites will allow both groups of students to collaborate and provide evidence of the journeys their projects are taking.

The refugee students will use the telephone functionality of the tablets to communicate their ideas and experiences with the students from Storm City International School. When accessing the internet, the refugee students will use the activated data plan available through Maxis to upload their photos, images and written evidence to the shared Google Site. Using peer assessment techniques and the commenting features available in Google Docs, Storm City International School students will be able to offer suggestions for improvement in the written work produced by the refugee and Local school students.

The two schools will continue their weekly meeting in Storm City International School laboratories. This will further develop face-to-face relationships between the students, offer opportunities for review, and to practise other elements of science.

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)