Overview
At NUSTEM, we know that the earlier intervention starts, the better. The aims of the ‘Play, Be, C’ units are to develop, deliver and enable a high-quality STEM intervention in the Early Years and Foundation Stage (EYFS). There are many adults other than the teacher working in EYFS settings who will all be key influencers but may not have the STEM qualifications or training. ‘Play, Be, C’ provides an opportunity to include these adults along with families of EYFS children in promoting STEM and STEM careers in EYFS and to ensure that gender (and all other) stereotyping is avoided during STEM interactions with children.
We have produced a series of units, each based on a high quality STEM story books. The units include STEM related questions to go with the book, a STEM person with a related career and their attributes, instructions for three adult led and three provocations related to the story to use in the setting and a STEM at home activity. The packs also contain STEM guides for practitioners to go with each activity including correct explanations of concepts and vocabulary lists and questions and suggestions for developing play, extending STEM learning and promoting STEM attributes. We plan to develop a consistency in approach in all adults, by imparting the units to practitioners in a non-intimidating, easy to access way.
Depending on your setting, you can use the units in different ways:
- Using all the activities from the unit over the space of a few weeks.
- Using the career poster and setting out the provocations for children to explore the activities independently.
- Using the career poster as part of a role play area to allow children to ‘try out’ the job represented in the poster as part of their free play.
Units
The Meteorologist
Meteorologists use special equipment and make forecasts of what the weather is going to be like. Meteorologist are:
Curious and want to know what the weather will be like in the future.
Observant when they look at what the weather is like today.
Collaborative as they work together with other people to get their job done.
Glaciologist
A glaciologist is a scientist who studies glaciers. Glaciers are huge lumps of ice found on mountains or near the poles which move slowly towards the sea. Glaciologists are:
Curious and want to know more about how the ice in glaciers moves.
Observant as they watch the ice carefully to see how it is moving and changing.
Resilient because they need to be able work in cold and windy conditions. They need to be quick to recover and get back out in the cold again each day.
Marine Engineer
Marine engineers make and fix boats and ships, submarines, oil rigs and drilling equipment.
Marine engineers are:
Curious and want to know which materials sink and float.
Creative when they design and build things like boats, ships, submarines and oil rigs.
Resilient when their ideas or designs don’t work the first time – they try again to get it right.
Lighting Technician
Lighting technicians design the way lights are used in television programmes, films, concerts, in the theatre or to light up buildings, statues or bridges from the outside.
Lighting technicians are:
Observant and look carefully at light and shadows.
Creative in the way they use lights to make people feel happy, sad, frightened or excited.
Collaborative when they work in a team to set up lights for shows, filming and events.
Fluid Scientist
Fluid scientists are interested in how liquid, gas, blood and plasma are like and how they move and behave.
Fluid scientists are:
Curious about what different fluids can do and how they might help us.
Observant when they watch fluids carefully to see how they behave.
Resilient because they try lots of tests before they find the best uses for different fluids.
Robotics Engineer
Robotics engineers design, build and programme machines to do jobs more easily than a human could.
Robotics engineers are:
Creative when they design and build robots for different jobs.
Observant as they find and fix faults in robots and computer code.
Resilient because they need to try lots of different ways to design, build and programme robots before they get them to work properly.
Magnet Engineer
Magnet engineers design magnets or machines that use magnets. Magnet engineers are:
Curious about how they can use magnets in different machines.
Creative when they use magnets in their designs.
Observant when they look closely at what magnets can do.
Arborist
Arborists work for lots of different people to make sure their trees are healthy. Arborists are sometimes called Tree surgeons.
Arborists are:
Collaborative when they meet with people to plan how to look after their trees.
Observant and notice what they need to do keep trees healthy, or if there are branches that need to be removed or cut down.
Resilient because their job is very tiring: climbing trees, digging out stumps and clearing away branches.