A team of the , a member institution of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) in Chile, under the current direction of professors Carolina Bonacic and Héctor Mu?oz, is implementing a capacity-building initiative for teachers nationwide in several lines of knowledge, providing them with new technological tools and strengthening the participation of women in STEM areas (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) from school teaching.
The gender focus of this particular initiative is now more relevant than ever before, considering available data on this issue. “Ensuring girls and women have equal access to STEM education and ultimately STEM careers is an imperative from the human rights, scientific, and development perspectives,” says the report published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – UNESCO.
Moreover, STEM, regardless of any gender consideration, without doubt “plays? a? crucial? role? in? achieving the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)” according to the paper titled published by UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education. STEM education, says the publication, “seeks to elaborate and provide innovative solutions to solve global issues” associated with the SDGs.
The initiative of the University of Santiago, which is supported by the Vice President’s Office of Outreach and Public Engagement and various Engineering schools and departments of this higher education institution, aims to train teachers, mainly middle school ones, to develop the so-called ‘STEM academies.’ In order to achieve this, they are enabled to approach educational projects with a STEM focus and a unique interdisciplinary angle.
In 2023 alone, more than two dozen teachers from different regions of Chile were trained, coming from the Metropolitan Region but also from Chiloé, Concepción, and Iquique. The group comprised a wide range of professionals in different fields who worked in teams to design several innovation activities centered around improving their environment using technological tools while inspired by the .
One of the most significant projects was developed in Quemchi (Chiloé), where teachers built a weather station in which students can make real-time measurements of humidity and environmental temperature. Field trips were made to native forests in order to make such measurements. Furthermore, a group of 8th-grade students taught the younger ones how to work at the weather station. However, many other projects were implemented as part of this initiative.
For instance, sensory stimulation products for neuro-divergent students were created in addition to video games to work with emotions at schools for different educational levels and a mobile app to coordinate and promote the sale of agricultural products within a professional technical high school. Along these lines, an innovation room was also established within an educational institution to promote the use of technologies through extensive interdisciplinary work.
Despite the difficulties associated with implementing a new educational model and a perceived initial reluctance among the participant teachers, in the end, they managed to embrace new concepts. According to the university’s team, the apprehension that existed at the very beginning was perhaps due to the persistence of traditional teaching techniques and methodologies. “As the course progressed, these views changed,” the team commented.
“We were able to engage, in our university, with teachers from different regions, generating a space where they shared their projects and training experiences, aside from innovative scientific-technological solutions to their communities’ social problems,” said Stefan Greve Yá?ez, Technologies Coordinator. “The experience has been enriching for all participants, including our team, generating linkages between schools and our university,” he added.,
For Isis Vivanco, Teaching Coordinator, the project has succeeded “mainly because of the teachers’ motivation and desire to learn further.” “Teachers from many different areas participated, all of them with the willingness to generate change. This allowed us to create a network that enabled them to discover that their schools share common challenges. Teachers were glad to improve the education they deliver while developing a better environment and society for all.”
