Abstract:

Considering the current focus of the development of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills within young learners, there is also a need to create ways in which these skills can be taught with minimal resources. STEM education is characterized as an integrated approach to teaching and learning in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics that takes into account the implications of curriculum requirements, assessment, instructional strategies, and available resources. This means that one draws from the content and principles available in each of the individual subjects to foster a better understanding of the connectedness between the individual STEM subjects (Prinsloo, 2022:29).

Issues in funding for education is a worldwide problem that society is faced with daily. Although there is differentiation in what the affects of the above is in each country, the basic lack of resources is seen across the world. Syrian refugees children attend makeshift schools, 130 learners per classroom in Malawi, no classrooms in Sudan due to heat collapsing their classrooms made from local materials, shortage of textbooks with one book to 13 learners in Tanzania, a need for ad-hoc learning centres in India as schools are over crowed and not within walking distance, families caught in cycles of generational poverty expected to pay for basic schools supplies are seen all over Africa, even first world countries like America reports of underfunded schools in their highest-poverty areas (Anon, 2023; Rueckert, 2019).

Unfortunately, STEM content and skills is not a spectator sport, and young learners need to be actively involved in order to develop problem solving, critical thinking, curiosity, creativity, observation, reasoning and collaboration (Pistorova & Slutsky, 2018:497). In accordance with the young learner's developmental stage, there is a need for learners to be taught utilising one of three instructional approaches—play, play-world, or maker spaces (Marsh, Wood, Chesworth, Nisha, Nutbrown & Olney, 2019). Play is involved in all three of the above instructional approaches. Vygotsky theorised that play is the creation of an imaginary situation, where learners take objects or actions and create new meaning (Fleer, 2019:1260). With the challenges we still face in the 21st century there is a need for utilising what we have to create opportunities for learning across STEM subjects for young learners. In light of this, this paper aims to show how a piece of paper can incorporate multiple STEM concepts and skills for learners in singular activities.

Talent is everywhere; opportunity is not.

Keywords:

STEM education, STEM resources, education for young learners, creative teaching.