STEM Student Summit

Metropolitan State University hosted a Student STEM Summit on September 25, 2009. Students from Century College and Saint Paul College were also invited to attend. I was only able to attend the keynote and wish I could have stayed - I missed the wind turbines, figuring out how much work I could generate, detecting an earthquake, programming a robot, and watching the bomb show.

The keynote was by Liesl Chatman, Director of Professional Development at the Science Museum. She gave an unconventional keynote but then, she's an unconventional person - a maverick as she would say. She told her story of how she became a STEM professional. It was NOT a straight, direct path. She presented the opposite of the school of thinking in which you have career plans, 5 year plan, steps to take, etc. Instead, her path involved a deeper reflection about who she is and what her skills are. I asked her where she thought she would be in 5 years - alive, camping, riding motorcycle.

Liesl had 4 main points:

• there are many paths to STEM careers
• the way you were taught science probably doesn't reflect what science really is
• STEM habits of mind will help you in life
• STEM literacy is a moral imperative for our time

What has been my path? Where is my path leading me? What got me excited about science? How are my children learning about science - inside and outside of school? How can we look at STEM education from a whole school systems approach? How can we get people out of their discipline and start integrating ideas?