Empowering STEM Education Professionals Programme (ESEPP) 2021

The inaugural Empowering STEM Education Professionals Programme 2021 organized by meriSTEM@NIE (National Institute of Education) aimed to enhance the quality of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and literacy in schools. The programme consisted of a professional development workshop segment and a competition which required at least four teachers from at least 2 different departments to form a team to create and submit a STEM lesson package centered around the theme of Sustainable Energy. 

In the spirit of collaboration and the interdisciplinary nature of STEM, a team of six teachers from our Science and Humanities departments in our Professional Learning Team for Project Work led by Mrs Preeti (Subject Head/Project Work who also oversees Environment Education) worked together over six months from Nov 2020 to Apr 2021, to create an innovative STEM lesson package for our Sec 2 Project Work lessons in Semester 2, which are centred on the theme of Energy Sustainability. The objective of the lessons was to teach students the importance of energy as a precious resource through perspective-taking and creative problem solving, using the design thinking approach.

Twenty teams of teachers from both primary and secondary schools submitted their lesson ideas. We are pleased to share that our team of teachers have emerged as one of the top 4 winners of the competition (Geylang Methodist Primary School, Westwood Primary School, Raffles Institution and us).  The prize includes $1000 for the team, $500 for the school, lesson package published on the meriSTEM@NIE website & learning exchange to Bangkok (if travel is permitted) to share and learn about integrated STEM activities.

All the 20 entries were of high quality and it was difficult for the organizer to select the winners. The judges’ comments for our winning entry include: “This project provides a very comprehensive learning to the students where they get to explore 2 different sets of countries.  It also allows students to apply what they learn to Singapore context.  The projects provide opportunities for the students to discuss and debate their points of views before they embark to prototype their ideas.  They also engage external stakeholders and end users on the prototype design.  This project is impressive. “

The award ceremony was held online on 30 Apr and our winning team presented their lesson package to the online audience and guests.