In 2019, the Dominica Association of Industry and Commerce (DAIC) committed to working with Arthur Waldron Academy to introduce a pilot STEM program into the school’s curriculum. This included adapting and introducing a new curriculum that will directly engage 100 students, 25 parents, and ten teachers over the period of one school year and provide all students with access to a STEM-based classroom. Thus far, this partnership has realized a significant increase in attention and advocacy related to STEM enhancement in the classroom.
From February 17th to 21st, 2020, the partners are hosting a Science Week themed “Cultivating the Seed of Innovation” where the students will be engaged in a series of activities as part of the Commitment to Action declared in June 2019 at the Clinton Global Initiative bi-annual meeting.
The activities of this week include a STEM Career Expo, Science Knowledge Bowl, a Science Fair allowing students to bring alive the theme of the week ‘Cultivating the Seed of Innovation’ and solar engineering training in partnership with Inventor, CEO and Founder Ms. Alice Min Soo Chun of Solight Design. This week will also ensure that the students will get connected to DAIC Members, other businesses and organizations in STEM-related sectors who inspire how to harness the potential of STEM in their organizations.
Ms. Lizra Fabien, Executive Director of DAIC remarked, “We are pleased to support this initiative with the Arthur Waldron Academy to spark a revolution of STEM in the school’s curriculum. We look forward to this being replicated across other schools in Dominica. Additionally, we believe that this initiative is important for enhancing the minds of our students who are the future leaders and experts within the Private and Public sectors to advance Dominica in many ways.”
Principal of AWSDAA, Mrs. Carlotta Challenger remarked, “As an institution on the continued quest to offer quality education to its beneficiaries, we are overly excited about integrating the STEM curriculum at our school. Our school family will be receiving the skill sets needed for the 21st century. This curriculum promotes relevance at it’s best as we move towards a digital economy. Our students are being equipped with the knowledge base and expertise to maneuver the demands of this technological world as they explore new initiatives in our newly established robotics club.”
Some of the additional benefits of the STEM curriculum will be: The heightened use of technology through coding, stimulating an interest in engineering to includes robotics. Many science and math courses will include interactive virtual labs. Highly engaging online experiments will enable students to demonstrate the scientific method, witness various outcomes, examine sources of error and provide an additional application of math principles.
Another exciting feature of this collaboration will be hosting a robotics camp during the period April 14th – 17th, 2020 in partnership with Dr. Schuyler Esprit of Create Caribbean. These activities will be used to enhance problem-solving skills and enable students to be innovative and creative in solving real-life problems.
Mrs. Challenger further remarked, “At Arthur Waldron SDA Academy, we are seeking to produce trendsetters, innovators, scientists, engineers and other STEM-related experts of the highest caliber. We are convinced that the introduction of the STEM curriculum will greatly boost the achievement of this objective.”
