SCIENCE, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) now dominate the debate on our new thrust for the education curriculum.
I once spent time reading the tweets directed at our Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo.
The overwhelming majority of the responses to the call to ‘stemitise’ our education system indicated a misunderstanding of the whole concept of STEM. Champions of the ‘humanities’ were downright hostile believing their areas of academic endeavour were just as important as the STEM group of disciplines.
Having trained as a science teacher and remaining one for now over 40 years, I feel I need to contribute to the debate to set the record straight.
First, there is no question of rivalry or competition between STEM and other areas of the school curriculum.
All areas are equally important, but we must place each discipline into the right context.
So let us begin by giving simple definitions of the STEM subjects.
Science is simply knowledge about the world around us which is collected in a systematic way, also called the scientific method.
Scientific methods take steps to remove bias or favour.
In the so-called bio-physical sciences such as the traditional biology, physics and chemistry, certain procedures are followed to collect information which can be accepted as the ‘truth’.
Usually the procedures are called experiments.
In an experiment, there is an objective or simply, the experiment has an aim for example ‘to identify the maize variety which gives the highest yield’.
The experimental method or procedure is written down and must be followed exactly so that any other person repeating the experiment must get the same results.
The experiment has what are called treatments e.g. fertiliser ‘X’ and fertiliser ‘Y’ each applied to separate plots.
Control treatments whose results are known are also included on separate plots.
The controls allow the scientist to compare the performance of the unknown fertilisers against the known to see whether they are any good.
The results of the control treatments are already known.
For example, in the fertiliser experiment, a negative control is one where no ammonium nitrate (AN) is applied; low yields of maize are expected.
In the positive control a known reasonable amount of AN is applied; high maize yields are expected.
The other fertiliser materials under test are then applied each in a separate plot but under similar soil and weather conditions.
At the end of the season, the yields in kg/ha are measured.
These are the results.
Statistical computations are made.
The statistics are mathematical procedures that show whether the crop yields obtained are really different and if the differences can be attributed to the treatments (fertilisers) applied.
Conclusions can then be made as to which fertiliser is better.
Recommendations can then be made to farmers as to which fertiliser gives the best results.
Because soils and climate conditions differ in different parts of Zimbabwe, the above experiment will need to be done in different areas with different conditions.
The information gathered is said to be scientific.
Farmers, government and companies can make decisions about how to grow good crops based on such scientific information.
This is one example to show why ‘science’ should guide our decisions.
Now we also have scientific procedures for the arts and humanities.
One popular method is called ‘triangulation’.
In this method, the researcher collects information, say from certain individuals school pupils.
To check if this information is correct, the researcher may independently ask the school headmaster for the same information and even a third person, the parent.
It both, the headmaster and parents give the same information as the children, it is accepted as correct.
Triangulation thus removes bias or favouritism since the parties are asked independently; it is a scientific method.
We thus have a basis for speaking of social sciences.
Let us hasten to say not all information from the humanities area can be verified through triangulation.
But all information that is true and unbiased is scientific, it is part of what we call science in the broad sense of the word.
So where are we now?
I am trying to explain that we all must act on scientific information.
Learning or understanding science is not a matter of choice.
Science is not found at school or in a laboratory.
It is all around us.
All citizens must have a ‘scientific’ appreciation of the world around them.
For example, the principle of cause and effect is scientific.
It is like saying ‘there is no smoke without fire’.
All of us know that if there is little or no rain, crops will not grow well and we are likely to have food shortages.
That is a scientific appreciation of the situation.
It is not based on guesswork.
The science (knowledge) is that living things require water to grow.
Little water equals little growth.
If weather is too cold, crops do not grow, so we plant mainly in the hot summer when temperatures are high.
When it gets very hot, we sweat.
By fanning ourselves with something that causes air to sweep across the skin, we cool the body through evaporation.
That is all easy to understand.
All this is science (STEM).
It is possible for all normal people to understand this, even little children.
So STEM says that is where we start, understanding the world around us and how it works.
Citizens who understand their environment are better able to control it to their advantage.
This is all about biology, understanding how living things live; how their bodies (including ours) work.
There are substances all around us, water soil, air and man-made objects. Chemistry is about these substances, how they interact, how they behave under different environmental conditions.
The more we understand about the materials around us, the better we will be able to use them.
So even at school, all children should learn about these materials.
That is what Chemistry is all about.
You can see papers pushed around by the wind; oxen pull the ox-plough and we use many different tools to do work.
All that is about how matter and energy interact.
We call that area of knowledge Physics.
Some consider it a hard subject but, the truth is that physics is all around us. There will be need to revolutionise the way science subjects are taught to take the ghost out of them.
In this series of articles, we want to demystify Science as part of removing the fear of science in the general population.
We want to show that in fact all our development must be led by STEM.
In the next article we move to looking at technology, engineering and mathematics to show how they are integral parts of our everyday experience and also why STEM is not separated from all other subjects in our school curriculum.