STEAM Foundation

We are committed to solving very poor science results benchmarked internationally coupled with poor resources and management. 

The solution we are proposing is working with teachers in under resourced areas and schools. We train and empower educators to deliver better science learning through practical experiments in the classroom using enquiry based hands-on and minds-on co-operative learning methods. We develop innovative, curriculum aligned materials that are licensed as Open Educational Resources under Creative Commons. Teachers in South Africa benefit from receiving professional development points for participation. 

The solution could positively change lives if scaled globally through on-line and blended science and technology methodology teaching. Our human centred design thinking approach ensures that context (poverty, high cost of data, lack of resources) is taken into account to enable success.

There are approximately 30,000 school in South Africa. Only 18% (approx. 5 400) have scientific laboratories and not all laboratories are fully equipped. it is no wonder that South Africa fares very badly in internationally benchmarked tests in science and maths. With the 4IR upon us, it is critical that we address the lack science and maths teachers and teaching in schools. There are a lot of teachers who have due to historical prejudice have not been exposed to high level science education. This continues to impact on teachers today. 

Given the fact that South Africa has an unemployment rate of 46.3% of youths between the ages of 15-34 (Q 2021) and the huge amount of pupils who fail matric (grade 12 exams), youth need to be given the opportunity to work and study science and maths but are being failed due to the lack of adequate education during formative school years. 

There is massive skills shortage in the country. This is due to the immense number of youth leaving school without completing their education. 

Additionally, there is also a huge lack of science and technology understanding which is negatively impacting the vocational schools.

The solution is an all-in-one inclusive kit enabling a blended learning approach using an inquiry based and cooperative learning methodologies  which addresses the following known issues in science teaching in under resourced schools in South Africa:

The learning activities meet teachers’ needs for activities that are both CAPS-aligned and SACE-endorsed for Continuing Professional Development points. 

Over and above addressing critical experiential learning activities, the pedagogical approaches are sensitive to the needs and constraints of under-resourced schools nationally. 

The learning processes engaged in include inquiry-based learning and co-operative learning methodologies while materials which include high quality specialist scientific kits, focus on a Phase rather than a Grade approach to learning, and included lessons on sustainability. 

Materials were licensed under Creative Commons as Open Education Resources to enable impact at scale, were edited for learners and teachers for whom English is an Additional Language and further edited for cultural relevance and inclusivity. 

The approach is multi-modal, including videos as well as many activities from hands-on scientific experiments to working with games and cards for the co-operative learning methods. 

The asynchronous mode of the online Learning Management System combines with that of the offline learning, hence the blended learning approach enabled successful outreach. 

Our solution directly benefits science teachers in under resourced schools though out South Africa but indirectly benefits the pupils. 

The science teachers living and working in areas of extreme poverty and receive little to no specialist science equipment or resources from the government, particularly with regards to managing science experiments with very large class sizes (60-80 pupils to a class). 

Their needs have been understood by a data driven approach, including working with Statistics South Africa and numerous pilot projects that have taken place over 5 years in 6 provinces of the country. Based on that, and research by various universities, a framework of what was required has been  developed and we have successfully iterated and improved the product and services as we go, and are ready to scale upwards given the opportunity. 

The solution has been crafted specifically to address all the needs expressed by the teachers during the pilot schemes. 

We align to the challenge through never compromising on the quality of the scientific material produced. Manufactured in South Africa to European specifications, we ensure that all materials given to the schools adhere to supply chain requirements and considerations. 

The principles of cooperative learning are modelled within the framework of diversity, inclusivity, and the various soft skill required by 4IR. We follow the South African Constitutional Bill of Human Rights ensuring equality and equitability for all pupils in the educational space. 

We are working on safeguarding polices within the educational context and would like to embed this into future programmes. 

Currently there are over 200 teachers in 3 provinces in South Africa that are testing the final blended learning model. Over and above this, we are working with the subject advisers, provincial district advisors and the heads of education within the provinces to finalise and stress test the products and services. 

We are testing in 2 districts in KZN: Harry Gwala and Ugu and in the metropolitan area of Gqeberha and throughout the Western Cape from inner metropolitan areas to deep rural areas. With this number of teachers, we are potentially reaching approximately 60 000 pupils. 

The teachers are diverse in age range, language, culture, teaching experience and qualifications. 

Michael Porter, the eminent strategist, talks about an interlocking system that provides value; strategic difference is the “result of a complex interaction between different activities, which is not reducible to the sum of the individual activities. It is this synergy between activities that produces value, not the activities in themselves”. 

The use of technology is common, and teaching is a daily, critical activity. What differentiates our response is the fact that we used a human-centred design thinking approach, based on research, to identify what was needed and create a systems approach to solving the challenges. For instance, ours takes a Phase rather than Grade approach, focuses on the absolutely critical concepts required (quality not quantity), draws extensively on subject experts' experience, embeds what they do naturally into the materials, incorporates co-operative learning into the actual worksheets On top of this, we developed our own box of scientific educational equipment based on a national pilot, using a local manufacturer for sustainability, and most importantly, generated our own high-quality black-and-white (for affordability of printing) scientifically accurate drawings that are affordable to print and download. 

Furthermore, it is curriculum-aligned, accredited for teacher professional development points and licensed under a Creative Commons license that is Open Education Resource and hence can scale. The fact that it is OER and our work around policy in this space, including the recent proposed Copyright Bill, seeks to enable broader positive impacts and ensure that government policy embraces OER materials to bring down costs. 

In the current training, there are over 200 teachers in three Provinces impacting an estimated 60 000 students. In the next year, once we have completed the final testing of the materials, we would be able to reach over 3 million pupils as there are over 1 million pupils in each of the Grades 7, 8 and 9. The material covers the key materials in all three grades and since South Africa has a national curriculum, every single pupil in the country in those grades is exposed to this content. 

In five years, we will have expanded the range of science teaching materials across the entire primary and secondary school years and have it accessible to every teacher in the country, so over 10 million pupils (from Grades 10 upwards not all pupils will take science subjects). Currently, science is not often taken up in the Senior years, so it’s not just about reaching each of those pupils, but in fact increasing the number who will take science.

Science education is fundamental to solving the huge challenge of youth unemployment, and we focus especially on the 21st century critical thinking skills, creativity, and collaboration to attract learners to seize the opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Google Research into Girls and Coding indicated that even a single, but positive interaction with computers can prime someone for a career in IT, and we seek to expand those positive experiences to increase the numbers of pupils studying science. 

The most obvious indicator is simply that of the number of teachers certified, followed by the number of pupils in their schools. We work closely with Statistics South Africa and are about to close off our current registration and send them the list of schools for them to plot onto the cadastral data set and

Department of Basic Education (DBE) – following the schools and teachers closely which will also give us insight into the diversity of classes. We are currently implementing assignments within the Learning Management System (LMS) which is providing a window into problems. We also conduct live learning sessions at which materials are also demonstrated. At the end of the course, we will be conducting surveys and interviews with the teachers. The Teacher Learning Centres and the Departments of Basic Education provincially are also highly engaged in this experience and participating in the learning exercises and lessons will provide further insight.

There are 1 full time, 2 part time and 2 volunteer staff and 28 staff through collaborative contracts with a fellow non-profit. 

On the one hand, we are a small start-up, but on the other, we have an entire community of those who are part of the team, many of whom are working pro bono or providing the support. 

Within our collaborative partner, CASME, we have many highly experienced trainers, some of whom continue to teach in their retirement, having been Directors in the Provincial Departments of Education, or lectures and researchers in universities focusing on school's development. Their depth and breadth of knowledge and experience is unparalleled, and they continue to pursue PhDs in Education and Science. Our team is multi-cultural and speaks many different languages and are reflective of the enormous diversity of South Africa. We have our strategist originally from the UK, and a highly competent professional Board with legal and financial skills of the highest order as well as a deep subject expert who is internationally recognised in the fields of education and particularly assessment. 

We also have designers and videographers who are translating the educational materials into high quality videos, photographs and associated graphics, fund-raisers, publicists – on the one hand, STEAM is a lean start-up but our collaborators from a huge diversity of backgrounds are many.

They are always at their best when their creativity and innovation is supported and not hampered. Using a team with a diversity of skill-sets and backgrounds is fundamental to tackling any big challenge and people thrive in teams when they know they are valued. 

Our approach is founded in valuing others for who they are and what they do. Our chief job is to inspire, communicate, value and trust people – the so-called ‘soft skills’ are fundamental to tangible, successful outcomes. They function best when their creativity and innovation is supported and not hampered. Each person in the team was identified for what they do, not who they are. 

That said, the result means that when we were pulling together the materials for the last project under huge time constraints and with a limited budget, it was notable that the team is remarkably diverse. We all work together seamlessly as a united whole successfully to solve the challenge while effectively venturing into the unknown as none of us had tackled this kind of a project before.

The team has to be defined as the sum of all the various organisations which come together as a working whole. We have turned out to be truly representative of the diversity of South Africans, truly multi-racial, multi-ethnic, speak a full range of languages and many religions. The one thing that differentiates us is that everyone is a problem-solver and are valued for their can-do attitude and we leave the decision-making around any one problem to whoever has the experience. The videographer knows he is empowered to make decisions; our materials developer worked through the night after the first day of videos to adapt the materials more fully to the environment. 

Becoming a Solve Fellow is about continuous improvement, engagement with a network that will challenge and stimulate and support your work. Such support cannot be fully quantified financially, the mentoring and advice is the underlying reason for participation. It’s about broadening your perspective and finding new methods of solving problems and even ready-made solutions that can be adapted.

In fact, the reality is that any organisation can become so engaged with delivery and implementation that you simply stagnate and don’t innovate. Participating in this challenge has, in and of itself, forced a reckoning within STEAM as to whether what we are doing is enough, how can we innovate, what do we need to innovate. Responding to this set of forms and questions is thought provoking, challenging and self-reflecting. 

STEAM began as a lean start up. We provided a minimum viable product and have proof of concept. We are extremely happy with the solution but now need help in terms of taking it to scale which requires a stronger business model, more and better technology, public relations and further funding. 

We would like to partner with like-minded organisations. We would also like to become part of the Solve team in terms of opening avenues and contacts to help us achieve our goals. 

The wider we can network, the greater the opportunities there are to expand our solution not only in South Africa, but also in other developing countries where support in science and technology is needed to go to scale. 

As previously stated, the innovation isn't about doing any one particular thing but about an interlocking set of activities using a human-centred design thinking approach to solving the many challenges. Over and above taking a systems approach, however, what is clearly critical in terms of reducing the costs of education would be the widespread creation and adoption of Open Education Resources, together with training on how to create and use the various Creative Commons licenses. 

During the Covid-19 Pandemic it became evident how few OER online resources there are that are not behind a paywall, high-quality, CAPS-aligned and for which teachers can receive points via SACE. Also, the creation of high-quality, low data, scientifically accurate images to facilitate understanding is critical. The benefits would be cost-effective scale and impact  - catering even for an offline environment of printing in black-and-white.  

STEAM would like to develop an app whereby teachers can access material and content on their smartphones at no cost.

The app should be zero-rated (not have data charges) by the telecommunications companies. This means teachers would effectively not be charged for downloading content. 

This would empower teachers by giving them the opportunity to explore and use content without cost. 

The app would also be created in such way that teachers have to upload their demographic information to access it. Form this, we would be able to perform analytics on what is used and how and include in it surveys and the like.

Through our relationship with Statistics South Africa, we would be able to analyse (including geo-demographic data relating to the areas within the schools are situated) to gain a better understanding of what works and where and how.

This would enable us to help with science and technology education in rural areas. This would also create a framework to analyse the greatest needs hotspots and what has the most impact.