Students at the Grantley Adams Memorial Secondary School received a glimpse of the applied sciences shaping tomorrow because the Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Science and Technology (MIST) and the Ministry of Educational Transformation launched a sequence of science and know-how roadshows on Wednesday — 15 years after it was first conceived.
The Innovating the Future roadshow, which varieties a part of a nationwide push to strengthen science, know-how, engineering and arithmetic (STEM) schooling, introduced collectively interactive reveals designed to spark curiosity and creativity amongst younger Barbadians.
Arlene Weekes, appearing director of the Science, Market Research and Innovation Unit at MIST, described the initiative because the realisation of an extended‑standing imaginative and prescient.
Arlene Weekes, appearing director of the Science Market Research and Innovation Unit at MIST. (SB)
“It’s a culmination of many long weeks, months even, of work,” Weekes advised reporters. She revealed that the idea dates again greater than a decade. “Fifteen years ago, I had the idea that we needed a mobile science and technology unit… to go across the length and breadth of Barbados. At the time it was going to be called Driving into the Future; now we’re Innovating the Future.”
The roadshow was deliberately designed to introduce college students to a variety of scientific disciplines by sensible experiences relatively than principle alone, she defined.
“We want to introduce the students to all aspects of science and technology,” she mentioned. Among the featured actions had been stay demonstrations of DNA extraction utilizing bananas, the place college students discovered about deoxyribonucleic acid because the genetic materials present in residing organisms. Other stations targeted on electrical circuits, electrons and the way electrical energy works.
Students had been additionally capable of interact with a flight simulator, robotics shows and digital actuality (VR) headsets. The flight simulator was significantly necessary for college kids with an curiosity in aeronautics. “There are so many of our young people who are interested in flight, and it is possible for them to get there,” she famous. In the robotics space, college students had been inspired not solely to function robots however to learn the way they may construct them themselves.
Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman underscored the broader nationwide significance of the initiative, linking it to Barbados’s lengthy‑time period improvement targets.
“You’ve heard me over the last year speak about the importance of Barbados creating a knowledge‑based economy,” Blackman mentioned. He harassed that the nation should transfer past consumption. “Barbados must not only be a consumer of technology and goods… but we must now challenge the next generation… to create solutions for our global problems.”
Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman (left) wanting on with different college students throughout the robotics train. (SB)
Blackman added that, as Barbados prepares to have fun 60 years of independence and 5 years as a republic, there’s a duty to look forward. The purpose, he mentioned, is to empower a era of younger Barbadians with the arrogance and expertise to drive the following section of nationwide improvement by innovation and know-how.