For the digital element, the team is developing an educator app for assessment and monitoring, and a family app that gives parents and carers ideas for how their children can engage with STEM practices at home. The program is designed to use play, having fun, experimentation and investigation to help children familiarise themselves with STEM practices and thinking. ‘So for us – What are important STEM methods? What are important STEM ideas? What are important STEM values?' Basically that, in any given situation, you need to be thinking about methods, values and ideas, and there has to be this interaction between. ‘It's theoretically based on the concept of “practice architectures”. So our take on STEM is somewhat different than the way in which it's defined elsewhere,' Lowrie explains, adding the focus is on practices that underpin STEM. ‘As you know, in an early years environment, there's not specific STEM curricula. Lowrie, who is the Director of SERC, tells Teacher the aim of the project is to explore the extent to which the program can engage preschool students – generally aged four – in learning activities associated with STEM thinking. The year-long pilot is being led by the University of Canberra's Centenary Professor of Education, Tom Lowrie, and run by its STEM Education Research Centre (SERC). The play-based program is aligned to the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and includes digital apps to support students, educators and families. The Early Learning STEM Australia (ELSA) Pilot launched in Term 1 involves more than 300 educators and 3300 children in 100 preschools. How early should educators be introducing children to the basics of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and engaging them in STEM-related learning activities? An Australia-wide research project is zeroing in on preschool.
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