1. ELC – STEM Session Managers
30th January 2018
( pm)
Introduction – who am I/RAiSE National project and how EY fits within this.

2. Plan for the Session
• Building STEM Capital – Why is building STEM capital so important in Early Years? A look at the research and discussion – prior reading that would be helpful: Aspires Report
• Ideas to engage everyone in STEM from ELC involved in the National STEM Project
• Gender Balance in STEM and Unconscious Bias

3. What is Science capital?
H/O Science Capital made Clear
Aspires Report
ASPIRES study (children’s science and career aspirations age 10-14)
–5 year ESRC funded longitudinal study, 3 tracking phases: Y6 (age 10/11), Y8 (age 12/13) and Y9 (age 13/14)
-Over 19,000 surveys and longitudinal interviews with 83 students and 65 parents
•Enterprising Science project: helping students to find science engaging and useful
–5 year project: KCL, Science Museum, funded by BP
–Interventions with schools, young people and families
–Over 9,000 surveys to date and in-depth qualitative research (observations, interviews, focus groups)

4. Why is this important?
A diverse scientific workforce is important for economic prosperity and for reasons of social justice
SAC – this is about increasing the aspirations of our young people
Skills Gap in UK/Scotland/Moray in STEM careers
Impact of STEM in all our lives
An underrepresented group in science – white, working class. Science just not for me!
The UK is facing a well-documented engineering skills crisis. An ageing workforce means that hundreds of thousands of skilled technician and professional engineering roles will need replacing over the next ten years. Royal Academy of Engineering Education and Skills Committee May 2016
Impact of STEM in all our lives – engage with science and technology increasingly important in our society. Reliance on technologies/dealing with the big issues of science/misconceptions

5. The Science Capital Approach
Three main pillars:
Personalizing and Localizing
Eliciting, Valuing and Linking
Building Science Capital
How could we do this?

6. STEM Ideas from National STEM project nurseries
Jimmy Dunnachie Family Learning Centre
LHS: Interview with Mark Dickie , Group Managing Director from World Wide Engineering Ltd.
Mark brought a selection of engineering materials for children to explore.
Resources where linked to real life situations via video footage.
RHS: Interview with Jenny Winsley a Civil Engineer.
Jenny told the children that the strongest shape is a triangle and used in a lot of designs.
Children took notes from Jenny’s presentation and created designs.

7. 3-18

8. STEM Ideas from National STEM project nurseries
Experiences at the nurseries – all levels engaged with STEM
Tinker tables H/O

9. STEM Ideas from National STEM project nurseries
STEM – all staff trained in STEM basics to build confidence - LA CPD/SSERC
Embedded in practice – not one-off activities, more about the skills development
Parental Engagement with STEM – STEM Bags
Building STEM capital within families – STEM Bags

10. STEM Ideas from National STEM project nurseries
Activities to develop skills of scientific enquiry:
Observing over Time
Identifying and Classifying
Pattern Seeking
Research
Fair Testing
At this point have a few experiments for participation!

11. STEM Activities Examples… Sharing good practice…
Where to find resources/ideas
STEM Ambassadors
H/O Early Years STEM ideas document.

12. Gender Balance in STEM

13. Primary pupils’ ideas of careers for women and men
Being cultural it also starts much earlier than secondary, with gendered expectations being fully ingrained by primary school, with attitudes towards jobs also being massively affected.
Student Council (P2-P7 pupils)
FEMALE JOBS:
Almost exclusively appearance or caring based careers.
In general all reasonably low paid jobs.
Lawyer is the only highly academic career included.
Gymnast/dancer are the only sporting roles. But still arguably appearance based.
Nun? Nurse, but no doctor.
MALE JOBS:
Many more than for the female careers.
More sporting, active roles.
More technological/trade roles.
Cleaner, nurse and teacher for female roles, caretaker, doctor and head teacher for male roles.
More high powered (and high paid) jobs.
21 jobs
33 jobs

14. Gender Balance in STEM – What can we do?
Inspiring the Future - Redraw the Balance
Address the issue! Our unconscious bias (unconscious bias does not equal an –ist)
Some facts!
Biases are useful.
They filter the evidence we collect.
BUT due to our changing perceptive lens we generally find evidence supporting the points of view we already hold.
Very difficult to realise this for ourselves.
Scientists estimate that we are exposed to as many as 11 million pieces of information at any one time and yet our brains can only functionally deal with 40 or so. So how do we filter out the rest? We form categories and pigeon holes based on the sum of our knowledge and experiences. But they’re not always correct.
How is it that we can be walking down a busy street in Glasgow with a virtual ocean of stimulus in front of us and still look for a specific person or thing? Someone running towards you with a murderous look in their eye would be pertinent information so would be flagged to the conscious.
We do it by developing a perceptual lens that filters out certain things and lets others in, depending upon certain perceptions, interpretations, preferences, and, yes, biases that we have adapted throughout our lives.
Not always incorrect, but can lead to making assumptions about people based on arbitrary characteristics and therefore treating them differently even if you don’t realise it.

15. What words would you associate with girls?
What words would you associate with boys?
Maximum of 10 words each
3 minutes!

16. These were from teachers

17. But we treat everyone the same…
Need to challenge the ‘we treat everyone the same …’ assumption.
Treating everyone the same does not equate to everyone having equal access to opportunities.
Image 1 equality, 2 equity, 3 remove the barrier

18. Resources NIH – ‘Improving gender balance 3-18’
IOP equality newsletter
H/O Early Years Doc

19. Evaluation form and Questions
Contact:
CPD Opportunities – happy to work with ELCs
Contact