Not only are the shop classes and home ec long gone from public schools, along with the arts, but now even experiments in science labs have been pushed aside to make more time to teach to standardized tests. Kids are not being given the opportunity to solve problems, use their creativity, and most importantly, to experiment and fail in order to learn. The impact of this deprivation is seen particularly in our dismal national performance in STEM education and therefore the STEM jobs pipeline. There is a workaround that can bring kids all this and more, without waiting for change to come to the schools via national and state politics. It’s simple, it leverages existing infrastructure, and it does not require an army of STEM subject-matter experts to implement it. It’s LA Makerspace’s impact model - training librarians and others who already work with kids to facilitate STEM learning Maker-style.
More from BIL:Los Angeles 2016
- 10 Simple Ways for Better Coffee (aka. you are probably brewing coffee all wrong...) — Troy Gardner
- A Real Man — Jason Bowers
- A Shamanic Nexus for Cancer Treatment — Paul A. Spiegel
- And Along Comes Another Blog: How to Make Your Efforts Stand Out — Mary Lansing
More on Education & Learning
- Going down without getting wet: Making ocean learning easy — Melanie Knight ▶ video
- Justin Bieber, the Beatles, Parallel Lines, and the New Art of Education — Mathew Crawford
- STEM, Not Just for Plants — Wes Wong
- The Importance of Making — Chris Lopez ▶ video