Firefly Education

Happy birthday!

As a charity whose main ambition is to excite and engage young people in coding competencies, this charity, Firefly Education is the first in line to wish this supporting organisation a very happy birthday – with lots of cake!

STEM Learning is 20 years old this year and it has been invaluable in supporting the creation of engaging Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) resources, teacher CPD and facilitating exciting learning activities for young people through the management of STEM Ambassadors.

As STEM Ambassadors in Firefly Education we aim to inspire and encourage the next generation to develop STEM skills.

Robots help unlock the mysteries of STEM

Making robots move using code is a very visual way of demonstrating the development of (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths)STEM skills. And it is fun – as fun as the challenge – to make the robot move forwards, race, burst balloons or complete a track. The activity, accessible to children of all ages and abilities, helps to foster the fundamental skills underpinning the technological sciences encompassed within the STEM acronym. In the words of a company (sphero) sourcing robots for schools, (robots)”…ignite curiosity and creativity and help students develop a life-long passion for learning.”

Much more than STEM learning alone

As a charity dedicated to developing competencies in coding through interaction with robots, we can testify to the creative approach children take when applying new skills and developing group work, communication, problem solving and experimental approaches to the sessions – they take away much more than STEM skills, but also personal development skills for all aspects of life.

Quality learning of much planning

Using robots is not the only way to excite young people in STEM, but one way. But any such learning activity requires a lot of hard work in the background and during the sessions to plan, and develop, to be able to facilitate the learning. Supported in these endeavours are organisations such as STEM Learning.

STEM Learning celebrating 20 years of quality STEM activities for young people

In the 20 years their STEM Ambassadors have delivered 500,000 activities. The programme has supported over 15 million young people over the last 5 years. That is truly something to celebrate! The Ambassadors are crucial in supporting the learning experiences and none of this would be possible without these volunteers. And their future plans are ambitious and exciting: “We will continue to champion the profile of STEM in education, including improving the teaching of STEM subjects. We aim to deliver high-quality CPD annually to 60,000 teachers, improving teaching for over 3 million young people.” Also, “We will continue to enrich and inspire young people to explore pathways in STEM and deliver high-impact student-facing activities to over 35,000 young people and targeted support for 30,000 young people from under-resourced backgrounds by 2030.” They currently work with,500 employers in the UK to link STEM careers to young people to support the development of a diverse talent pool. They aim “to grow our STEM Ambassadors community to over 30,000 volunteers from 10,000 employers by 2030”. Firefly Education hope to be part of this initiative.

Becoming a STEM Ambassador

If you are reading this and wish to get involved and become a STEM Ambassador and work with the robot coding activities that we take into schools in the Southwest, follow the process for registering as a STEM Ambassador and then get in touch. We can guarantee it will be a rewarding experience, being both part of such a huge wave to ambitious targets, but also receiving the smile from a single child who made her robot move by coding it to do so.