PAL wants to extend its STEM Fluency Labs programme. The Labs have been tried and tested in the UK several times since they were first commissioned in 2008. So far four residential Labs have been produced. 66 teachers, 9 curriculum designers, 13 artists and 5 scientists have taken part.
Curriculum redesign is a priority across the UK and further afield. There is more focus on excellence and developing knowledge and skills which are cross-disciplinary and personalised. It is recognised that helping pupils gain confidence and a love of learning will prepare them better for an uncertain future. Concurrently we have seen increased investment in science, and now STEM, at all levels from schools and colleges to higher education, technology transfer and enterprise. The UK’s success as a world economy relies on the ingenuity of its people, on inventiveness, knowledge acquisition, risk taking and responsiveness.
A gap which PAL has highlighted is that current structures are still narrowly focused on individual subjects and disciplines. There is insufficient investment in learning which brings together the curriculum and helps young people to begin to understand whole systems which are integrated, interdependent and adaptable.
Would you like to know more about PAL’s STEM Fluency Lab programme and what it might bring to your organisation? PAL is seeking new partners to extend the work. Contact Labs in Learning Director .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
PAL’s journey to STEM
PAL’s STEM Fluency Labs started with a commission from the Nuffield Curriculum Centre in 2008. The opportunity to test the model again arose from a partnership with Ignite to develop a three-year programme (2008-10) in the East Midlands, including three PAL STEM Fluency Labs for teachers, artists and scientists. In 2009 we also produced The Difference Engine Lab for Creative Partnerships Manchester, which led to the development of an exciting performance piece on Charles Babbage and associated teaching materials, distributed to Manchester schools .
STEM Fluency Labs built on the experience and learning from our Creative Science Teaching programme, designed and produced from 2002 to 2005. And the Creative Science Teaching Labs were, themselves, inspired by PAL’s earlier work linking computer scientists to digital media practitioners and the arts.
Between 1997-2000, PAL pioneered European Multimedia Labs, which brought together interdisciplinary creative teams from across Europe. In 2000 as bandwidth increased, PAL’s first Broadband Lab produced digital prototypes, funded by independent producers and academic institutions in the UK and abroad. Also in 2000 PAL went back to basics to explore the grammar of interactivity, with artists and computer scientists, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Arts Department of Columbia University, New York. These experiences attracted a commission in 2002 from NESTA FutureLab for a Science Simulation Lab to generate ideas and interactive learning materials focused on science in the 21st century.
PAL’s Creative Science Teaching Labs also informed a commission in 2005 from the Wellcome Trust. This was the Digital Science Lab, which developed teaching software prototypes around issues in the 21st Century Science curriculum.
PAL’s most unexpected engagement in science to date occurred in 2006 when the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council asked the company to contribute to the design and facilitation of a five-day residential project development event for 28 scientists – a ‘sandpit’ about Scientific Uncertainty and Decision Making for Regulatory and Risk Assessment Purposes. All but one of the research projects developed at the Sandpit received further funding of a total of £1 million.