Many parents today are encouraging their children to explore a new set of skills and interests that can help cultivate their talent, from having an entrepreneurial mindset to the field of science and mathematics. Today’s issues tap into the problem of climate change, profound innovation in technology and engineering, city design needs, living with disabilities, etc. Many STEM projects utilise real-world concerns such as those mentioned, providing creative solutions down the road.
Encouraging children to explore STEM will help provide our world with tomorrow’s brilliant scientists, engineers and mathematicians. Many jobs might disappear tomorrow but occupations centredaround STEM are expected to increase in demand. After all, there are still abundant STEM courses in Singapore for future generation students to come.
The Benefits Of Early STEM Education
STEM education in Singapore is popular, yet many children are yet to find interest in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, especially in their curriculum. Without further ado, here are the benefits of early STEM education for children:
Encourages collaboration
Teachers and parents can teach STEM to students at all levels across multiple disciplines, and students involved can learn the ability to work with one another to achieve a working solution. The segments also include; data gathering, forming of hypotheses, writing reports based on data gathered and preparing for a presentation in various mediums, thus promoting collaboration.
Enhances memory retention
STEM education in early childhood provides children to explore more in-depth learning that focuses on problem-solving and retaining knowledge information. Experiential learning also takes place and has proven to increase memory retention rate as they grow older—preparing them for more advanced future learning!
Teaches problem-solving
Almost every STEM programme in Singapore and courses are about solving problems. Thus encouraging and engaging children in early STEM education provides them with early use of their critical thinking skills to examine and analyse problems to create a tactic and working strategy to solve them.
Helpful Ways To Engage Children With Early STEM Learning
The composition of science, technology, engineering and mathematics has proven to provide children with the skills they will need for holistic learning while enhancing a growth mindset. The readiness for a higher education and future career success are the hallmarks of prioritising or encouraging children for STEM education. Without further ado, here are helpful ways that parents can perform to engage their children with early STEM learning.
Encourage museum visits
STEM education is more than convincing your child to read and use science and mathematics textbooks. A trip to a science or historical convention centre, exhibition or museum can stimulate your child’s interest which helps them to embrace active learning. Whether it’s a VR experience or exploring historical artworks and remarkable ancient inventions, there are various inspirations waiting around to spark every kid’s curiosity to explore other fields of interest!
Discover historical role models
From the enigmatic works of Tesla to the intriguing concepts of von Neumann and the early scientific foundations of Newton, there are many inspiring role models for your child to learn apart from the ideas they encounter in school. Exploring STEM education often starts with understanding brilliant concepts from brilliant minds that will serve as teachers. It provides them with inspiring stories about their personal life and what led them to discover these theories and notions that we now use in our everyday life.
Learn STEM with exciting experiments
Experiments are perhaps one of the most interesting and intriguing aspects of STEM, especially in the field of science. While it can be more interesting than reading hard textbooks, it also encourages the use of critical thinking and reinforces the learning procedure. After all, your child does not need to wait to take STEM courses to experience experimentations and make a meaningful connection between ideas and the real world.
Have a walk with nature
There are many things that your child can discover when exploring nature. Nature itself is often the source of our knowledge, and we gather them through introspection, reasoning and sensory learning. Thus it calls out the duty and obligation of any curious children to absorb all the fascinating information that lies behind every examination and scrutinisation. Seeing the hidden beauties in the river and understanding the life of the cycle of butterflies allow them to see things and implement a new perspective on things around them.
STEM Learning – The Importance of Emphasising STEM-Related Skills
Every STEM programme in Singapore embraces a higher form of thinking skills that are recognised in our modern world today to help foster the love of knowledge and learning. Enhancing STEM-related skills is critical such as:
- Application
- Analysis
- Problem-solving
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Engineering-design thinking
- Observation
- Curiosity
- Creativity
- Critical thinking
Most STEM-focused careers and occupations often revolve around discovering and explaining the ‘hows’, ‘whys’, and ‘what ifs’ of a phenomenon or problem. Granting your children an opportunity to explore the world and discover more about nature instead of giving them a direct answer to questions are components of effective STEM education. You can further help stir their curiosity and stimulate their appetite for learning to develop and cultivate their skills for more advanced learning.
Ensure that your child is aware of having these abilities and what they need to do to learn more and align them with their interest and passion. All children and students should have the capacity to explore things with the permission and consent of parents without setting any boundaries (intentional or unintentional) and stereotypes which can hurt their ability to discover more.
If you are looking for STEM and professional development courses in Singapore, visit IDE Academy for more info on STEM programs with hands-on activities and other STEM-related subjects.
