What is STEM?

Even expanding on that question: What is STEAM?

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education is primarily developed to support childrens' capacities to understand, appreciate and fully engage with the world around them. At its basic level, maths provides the foundation for the understanding and exploration of science, technology, and engineering. Through maths, we can study the relationships, connections, and even patterns (including the natrural world) that surround us. Art has been included to create STEAM Education. Some teachers have endorsed the addition of Art to be included, recognising it as the chemistry of creativity in young minds. All of these subjects are intrinsically linked and enable children to benefit from learning about and working with traditional, contemporary, and emerging technologies.

Since 1999 here in Ireland, the redevelopment of the Primary School Curriculum - and asof its latest draft of 2022 - provides an opportunity to enhance children's learning through STEM Education and highlight the positive impact it has in their lives as the grow along their educational journey.

What is a STEM Outreach Communicator?

STEM Communicators and Educators are people who specialise in a variety of STEM related topics and activities to help children explore the world around them in a fun and educational way. By creating and hosting activites for children that are fully engaging, experimenting, asking questions and finding out the answers through practical and throught-provoking techniques - and are as fully inclusive as possible - is what makes a really good STEM Communicator. This is where Seanie Morris has excelled in for many years. Would you like to explore more with Seanie? Then you can find out about his workshops here and read more about Seanie here.

These are Seanie's principles for STEM Outreach:

Build - HOW does it come together and WHAT is the objective?

Explore - WHY does it work, or not? WHEN can we change something for it to do something else?

Discover - DOES our exploration help us overcome hurdles and add benefit to our world? WILL it solve new problems in the future? And CAN we make it last?