The final segment of a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) regional workshop is currently being held in Dominica.
The two-day workshop commenced on Wednesday at the Dominica Public Service Union Conference Room.
The workshop is conducted by the Caribbean Science Foundation and the Caribbean Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the Ministry of Education.
Assistant Director of the Caribbean Science Foundation Lois Oliver noted that most of the Caribbean economies are heavily dependent on the tourism industry and diversifying to incorporate STEM is not a bad idea. “We want to encourage Caribbean governments to diversify their economies to incorporate STEM as a means of providing funding, providing money bringing economics in.”
“We want to encourage Caribbean governments to diversify their economies to incorporate STEM as a means of providing funding, providing money bringing economics in,” she stated. “Now most of our economies are based on tourism and the problem with tourism that it is very fickle should something happen in our islands.”
She noted that in 2015 due to Tropical Storm Erika, Dominica’s tourism product was affected, “Dominica has some encounters with some bad weather two years ago and we know what impact that can have on our earning capacity as tourism based economies.”
Therefore, Oliver said regional government need to focus on areas which are tangible given the vulnerable state of the tourism sector.
“So we think that using STEM as a means of creating businesses and forming entrepreneurial activities that is a fantastic way of increasing economic benefit and potentials of our islands,” she said.
Meantime, Chief Education Officer Melena Fontaine said these STEM workshops are important as the ministry seeks to shift for the traditional learning styles.
“These training sessions are important as we embrace a paradigm shift in education that is moving away from traditional methods of teaching to one where we adopt standards that makes learning relevant, challenging and meaningful for our students,” Fontaine stated.
She said the teaching strategies can be utilized in the ministry’s assessments in order to foster change.
“This change that we are hoping for will not be realized overnight it’s a gradual process and your organization conducting those workshops has been allowing our teachers opportunities for growth,” said Fountain.
Their is no one in dominica selling shares for the caribean stock exchange , that’s to show you how backwards we are as a people .
Negativity is also a backward trait.
Positive criticsm. Read what he said again…enough talk where is the action to do something.
Was there a theme for the workshop , good question to asked . That’s what we have been doing for the last 50 yrs, China just build their first jet liner in 50 yrs with students who studied in the west. All we are doing is having seminars from island to island without creating nothing , it’s time to stop that nonsense and build something together . In dominica they call us cockroaches , that means we have no brains to build any thing , all we do every day is talk , and fight for power in roseau . Jamaica has 8 billionaires we have none, Barbados has 3 , we cannot even build a bridge , the question is why after 50 yrs we own nothing . Because we are not disipline people and we have no plan, all we are good at is carnival .
Nicely done Dominica. At a time when the world is rapidly evolving, STEM is on our shores and we are using it to make our contributions locally, regionally and globally. Before these subjects would be taught in isolation, and there were not enough people qualified for high-tech jobs. Now, with an amalgamated STEM curriculum, we can produce efficient engineers, mastering in a collective field. Kudos!
Was there a theme for this workshop?
The aim of the workshop was two-fold: 1) to teach teachers how to be more effective at teaching STEM, using readily available materials and 2) to introduce the UNESCO-approved micro-science kits, which are essentially miniaturised labs in a small box. Overall,the promotion of Inquiry Based Science Education and Problem Based Learning were the key underscored aims.
The overall theme for this and the 7 other workshops done by the Caribbean Science Foundation & the Caribbean Academy of Science was “Promoting Enhanced Scientific Literacy Amongst The Region’s Youth”