creative futures - jamaica achieving your potential students from 10 primary schools and 4 high...

Creative Futures - Jamaica: Achieving Your Potential

Creative Futures – Jamaica Dr Sunday Popo-Ola March 2018

Report on

Creative Futures - Jamaica Achieving Your Potential

Monday 5th

to 9th

March 2018

Report by Dr Sunday Popo-Ola



Introduction to Creative Futures -Jamaica Workshop

In March 2018, an ambitious STEM event for 420 Jamaican schoolchildren was held in Jamaica by JET-UK (Jamaican Engineering Technology UK). This partnership of Mr Seymour Mattis with Dr Sunday Popo-Ola of Imperial College London ran for 5 days, serving students from 10 primary schools and 4 high schools in the Jamaican cities and towns of Kingston, St Andre, St Catherine and St Elizabeth. The event was the STEM Creative Futures Jamaica' Workshop. The students were mostly from Grades 5 & 6 but 70 were in high school Grade 10 Creative Futures - Jamaica is a day-long event. It is designed to inspire pupils in STEM. It aims to show students their potential and encourage them to learn about STEM subjects, and perceive higher education as something they would want. The framework for the event is that it was part of Science and Engineering Taster Week, hence the ability to find audiences in so many locations and in such numbers. The structure of the event is fixed. “Creative Futures: Achieving Your Potential” suits students aged 9-16 years. It includes the presenters acting as role models, mentors and inspirational speakers. The focus of the student experience is upon helping the pupils to use their FOUR-C thinking: Critical thinking in order to work Collaboratively and Communicate their Creativity while working in a team (4Cs). The programme for each day takes the following format: 9.15 - 9.25 Welcome and Introduction 9:25 - 9:30 Opening Remarks (approx. 5-10 mins) 9.30 - 12.30 Workshops Fun Engineering - Building a Paper Plane and fly it (All grades) Bridge Engineering - Building a bridge with drinking straws (Gr 5 and 6). Creative Engineering – Design and Build a Chair (Grade 10) 12.30 - 13.00 LUNCH, Followed by Storytelling and Music. 13.00 - 13.30 Role Models – Inspirational Talks (5-10mins per speaker) 13.30 - 14.00 Testing Loading and testing of design to failure (All grades) 14.00 - 14.30 Award of Certificates Representative from the Ministry of Education or Professor from UWI 14.30 Ends



Day 1: Creative Futures Jamaica - Achieving your Potential through Critical Thinking The first day’s events included a total of 110 pupils from Padmore and Duhaney Park Primary Schools. The morning session of the interactive day started with Fun Engineering workshop where each student have to design and quickly build a paper plane and fly them towards Dr Popo-Ola. Team events followed with a brief to build an improved plane by modifying the design after learning how to shape, trim and correctly test the aircraft before flying it. This is an activity where improvement by the student team can literally be measured in terms of whether their plane’s duration of flight improves. We measure distance and the time aloft of the new plane made by each team, see photos below. The afternoon session moved into Bridge Engineering where students work in team to design and build a bridge with drinking straws. The bridge was then loaded with green plantain weights. The lightest bridge to withstand most weight was Team 3 with a design efficiency of 25%. See photos of the winning team below. Using a role model giving an inspirational talk, we involved Mr Gordon Brown Imperial College London Alumni who spoke about working hard. Also MRs Chevonnese Chevers Whyte Assistant Lecturer from CARIMAC Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of West Indies who spoke about making your culture work for you in life by being creative. A learning summary from students finished the day: pupils gave us feedback about how the workshop has helped their thinking about STEM and work. Each student went home with Certificate of Attendance at the Creative Futures Jamaica.

Our thanks for the Day 1 event is to everyone, particularly noting Ms Tamara Freeman of Duhaney Park, Ms Melissa and Ms Smith of Padmore Primary School as well as Ms Keisha Hayle, Principal of Padmore School who helped to organise this workshop with other schools in the Padmore area.



Day 2: Creative Futures Jamaica - Achieving Your Potential through Collaboration 151 students took part at St. Catherine, Jamaica. The hosting school was Barton's Primary School headed by Mrs Hetana Haase-Johnson. Pupils from 3 other neighbouring schools (namely: Brown Hall, Ensom City and Good Hope Primary Schools) attended the event. The role model talk was by Ms Hikeba Hasse Principal of Morgan Pass Primary School, Clarendon and a promoter of Jamaica 4Cs initiative on Critical thinking, Collaboration, Creativity and Communication. Mr Seymour Mattis of JET-UK also spoke and highlighted the importance of STEM subjects and its usefulness to everyone. Mr Mattis says that "the ability of the pupils to work in teams and their communication was impressive". Teachers participating in the workshop were particularly pleasing to see. Role Models’ talks were followed by Fun Engineering with pupils building and flying paper planes. The Session 1 ended with pupils so excited that they wanting to learn more about how to keep their planes flying longer distance and staying aloft. Session 2 saw the pupils divided into 15 groups of 8 or 9 students. After a short introduction into Structural Engineering and the use of trusses for bridges, Dr Sunday Popo-Ola tasked the students to design and build a 600mm long bridge using drinking straws, tape and/or glue gun. "I have never seen so many primary school pupils eager to acquire more knowledge than practically available to them on the day”, said Dr Popo-Ola. Group 8 built the best bridge which took the weight of 4 glue sticks before it failed by twisting sideways due to lack of adequate cross bracing, see photos below.

Each student left the encouraged to have learnt something new which can never be stolen from them. All received Certificates of Attendance from Creative Futures – Jamaica. Our thanks goes to Mrs Hasse-Johnson, Principal of and all her staff who supported the workshop.



Days 3 and 4: Creative Futures Jamaica - Achieving Your Potential while having fun through Communication. From Kingston, we drove for 3 hours, to arrive at St. Elizabeth in the South West part of Jamaica to meet 165 pupils from Balaclava and Fyffes Pen Primary Schools. See photo of the students in the classrooms. Larger numbers of students turned up, than expected. Combining two classrooms helped but remained overcrowded, so we had to abandon the Fun Engineering workshop but instead Mr Seymour Mattis ran a Science Quiz with the students and their responses were impressive. The quiz was immediately followed by Bridge Engineering workshop. Dr Sunday Popo-Ola ran the bridge event with 20 teams of 8/9 students in a team. Sketch the bridge first was the instruction. They had to sketch their structure and then build and annotate the sketch with approximate dimensions. We had 10 teachers at hand to help us with these large groups of students. Some students were prepared to work through their lunch hour to finish their bridge building. "This is most interesting groups of well determined students we have come across this week”, said Dr Popo-Ola. The student's achievements were rewarded with each pupil going home with Certificate of Attendance.

We would like to thank all those who have helped us today especially Mr Nichol Jackson the Principals of Balaclava and all the 10 teachers who helped to make the day a success.



Day 5: Creative Futures Jamaica - Achieving Your Potential through

Creativity and Teamwork

This final Creative Futures workshop was in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica with 65 students from three High schools namely: St. Elizabeth Technical High Schools (STETHS), Newell High and Sydney Pagon STEM Academy.

The role model talk was by Mr Rudi Page of Diaspora Connect, encouraging the students to learn to be a team player so as to be able to achieve their potential in life. Mr Page's daughter, Ms Leanne Page also spoke on the benefits of collaboration and that learning is a lifelong endeavour and with hard work, perseverance and collaboration, needed to fulfil own potential. She reminded everyone of International Women’s Day and discussed how women can shape their voice and take on roles that could create our future. Leanne is the Project Director at the global PR and Digital Communications agency MSL (PUBLICIS UK) and international speaker/lecturer in the digital & technology industries. Leanne was very pleased to hear that many young women at STETH Jamaica are taking steps towards industries of the future.

The workshop then started with Fun Engineering where students learn to build and fly paper planes. As usual, the tall Mr Seymour Mattis was the target they aim for while flying their planes: this ‘naughty brief’ (to aim at Mr Mattis) builds instant rapport with and builds glee amongst the students. Some of the students who have never built nor flown paper planes before were amazed to find it so easy. They soon could fly their planes with elegance. After a short break, Dr Sunday Popo-Ola kicked off the talks on Bridge Engineering and the associated principles of forces, loads and truss design. The students were then put into 20 groups of 6/7 students in a group. The work started with each team sketching out the bridge they are going to build. It was interesting to see that some groups were drawing in 3-dimensions rather than 2-dimensional sketch they were asked to produce. “This is an amazing communication ability expressed by the students”, said Dr Popo-Ola. The construction of the bridge started after 30 mins lunch break *(Jerk Chicken, salad, rice and peas). In less than 1 hour all 10 groups finished building their bridges. The bridges were tested by loading them with bottles of water (1 litre each). Results varied: Group 7’s bridge took one bottle before it failed; Groups 5 & 6 took one & a half bottles; Groups 2, 3, 8 and 10 each took two bottles before their bridge collapsed; Groups 4 & 9 took two and half bottles. The bridge that won the day was Group 1 which took 3 bottles of water before it collapsed. The testing of the bridge created a fierce but healthy competition amongst the groups because each team wanted their bridge to carry more loads than the other teams. “It is interesting but difficult to describe the excitement and screaming amongst the girls during the load tests while some boys were shaking as their bridge gradually collapsed, said Dr Sunday Popo-Ola. Overall the day and week finished with students asked to reflect on their newly acquired knowledge, skills and confidence, looking ahead to working in team and do things that they have never done before. Each left with a Certificate of Attendance at the Creative Futures Jamaica. Our Day 5 thanks go especially Mrs Sandra Holness, Deputy Principal at STETHS, Mrs Kenisha Hopper, Head of Science Dept at Newell High School, Mr Septi Roach, Dean of Sydney Pagon STEM Academy and Mr Gary Powell. We also like to thank all our sponsors and the School Principal who cooperated with us to make this event a success.



Sponsorship Acknowledgement

We thank all our major sponsors namely:

The Victoria Mutual Building Society

Grace Kennedy

Diaspora Connect

Aare Akeweje Foundation

Imperial College London

Our gratitude also goes to our event partners: JET-UK and Imperial College London. The support from the Principals, Teachers and Parents are also highly appreciated. We also thank The Ministry of Education, Youth & Information, Jamaica for their support of this workshop.

Please contact us ([email protected]) if you would like us to run such a workshop with other schools or your old school. It is a way for you to give something back and to have impact our future leaders. The British team are delighted with the support and engagement from students and their schools, teachers and communities whilst in Jamaica.

Thank you all.



The Origin of Creative Futures @ Imperial College London, UK

Creative Futures is a day designed to inspire pupils to achieve their full potential and encourage them to think about science and higher education. Creative Futures was initially introduced during Black History Month and to keep this theme on-going, we have invited schools and their students to come to Imperial for a Science and Engineering Taster Day at the College. Hosted by Imperial As One, the College's black and minority race equality advisory group, Creative Futures: Achieving Your Potential is an interactive learning day for 9-16 year old pupils, role models, mentors and inspirational speakers. The day focuses on aspirations, collaboration and team working.

creative futures - jamaica achieving your potential students from 10 primary schools and 4 high...

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