Our fellow Agilian Sharon Borland spearheads a STEM project at a local primary school to educate children on basic skills related to STEM industries! By volunteering her time, Sharon helps bring STEM education to schools and promotes the future opportunities available in STEM-related fields for the pupils.
We interviewed Sharon to learn more about her volunteer work, the motivations behind this project, and the rewarding moments she has experienced along the way.
Sharon, can you tell us a bit more about the schools STEM Project?
“Many primary schools now include STEM within their curriculum and often highlight this at specific times of the school year. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The intention is to educate the children to learn some of the basic skills of these industries, how these industries impact people’s everyday lives and highlight the various career opportunities within them.”
What made you want to get involved?
“I think the STEM education within school is a brilliant idea and a great way to make these industries accessible to the children. I really wanted to be a part of that to be able to inform children that Software Development is also part of Technology but it’s not all about being able to code.
I was very keen to be able to educate the children on the various careers available in Software Development and how there are roles within it that are not obviously linked to Technology or Software. There are many roles where being able to code is not required at all. I was also of the vain hope that I may influence even just 1 child to consider software development for their future who may never have thought of it as an option before, purely because they were not very good at using computers. Even just to have children understand that software development is not just coding would be an achievement within itself.”
What did you enjoy most about the supporting the events?
“I have to say that the most enjoyable part for me was when I did the presentation to the school about how my role as a Software Tester fitted into the software development process and we brainstormed how you would test some real-world items.
They were all really engaged and came up with some brilliant suggestions even came up with ideas that I had not considered at all. To see them really grasp the idea behind it and fully embrace it was so rewarding. I was expecting to have to do all the talking but I could not have been more wrong, there was lots of shouting out ideas when invited to do so and loads of hands in the air to answer my questions too. I left the presentation so happy I felt like I was walking on air.”
What do you think the children enjoyed or took away from the event?
“At the presentation I think the children enjoyed being asked their opinions and thoughts rather than just being talked to.
I am sure they enjoyed shouting out “BUG!” every time I showed them an example of something that did not work as expected. I think they also enjoyed having to think differently about how every day items may need to used to test them. At the STEM fair they certainly enjoyed the lucky dip and trying to find the best items they could within there haha. They also really enjoyed designing and creating a robot and I hope they went away with the knowledge that software development is for everybody and an understanding of how an idea can become a reality in the software development world and that world is open to everybody, with various skills and expertise being welcomed.”
What advice would you give to other Agilians looking to do something similar in their community?
“Go for it, it is one of the most rewarding things you can do.
Standing there and seeing all these little faces really listening to what you have to say and passionately engaging in the things you are showing them is the best thing in the world. It makes you feel like you are making a difference.
You could have a little impact and influence on the next generation of experts in the Software Development industry. Even if you just influence 1 child, that’s amazing!”
What’s next?
“I would love to extend this to other primary schools, even take this into high schools and beyond. There are already career events that take place within schools and higher education that we could easily participate in.
It would be fantastic if we could set up relationships with local schools in all the areas we are based, and maybe build up such good relationships to be able to offer Agilio Software work places or apprenticeships. Obviously to be able to do this I would need help from my colleagues in various other divisions as I don’t have the full knowledge and understanding to be able to do them justice, so if you would like to get involved please reach out.”