Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands (February 28, 2018) — FortisTCI, along with the Department of Education, is hosting a training workshop for teachers involved in science education in local primary and high schools.
The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Workshops will be held at the FortisTCI corporate offices on March 6-7, as part of this year’s Education Week activities.
Education Week will be observed from March 4-10. The annual FortisTCI Science and Technology Fair, which has been a calendar fixture of Education Week, will not be staged this year, as schools continue to recover from the impact of last year’s major hurricanes.
“FortisTCI is proud to launch these STEM Workshops, in keeping with our commitment to support educational initiatives in our community, and to help promote greater interest in science and technology among our students, for the future development of our country,” stated FortisTCI President and CEO, Eddinton Powell. “We believe these workshops will be highly beneficial to our science teachers, and will help them to further excite their students who have an interest in the sciences,” he added.
The STEM Workshops will be conducted by Dr. Shirin Haque, PhD who is known throughout the Caribbean as a lecturer on science topics and for conducting similar workshops for teachers in the region. Up to 30 primary school teachers are expected to attend the session on March 6, and a similar number of high school teachers will participate on March 7.
Workshop attendees will learn about the role of science and technology in society, the need for STEM in workplaces of the 21st century and how to integrate STEM into their curriculum, among other topics. Teachers will also engage in hands-on and interactive learning in subject areas such as use of today’s technology in STEM teaching, field trips as part of the science methodology and environmental sustainability.
“These workshops are developed on the philosophy that if teachers understand and appreciate why STEM has become a necessary approach in teaching, in order to develop the skills set required of students for the future job market and for our societies, there will be greater buy-in and implementation,” Dr. Haque stated. “I am very much looking forward to being in the Turks and Caicos Islands for the first time, and supporting FortisTCI and the Education Department in this important outreach to teachers.”
Dr. Haque is presently the Deputy Dean for outreach in the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, Trinidad. An astronomer by profession with research interests in astrobiology and cosmology, she also holds an MPhil degree in Psychology. She is the recipient of the Rudranath Capildeo Award for applied Science and Technology and Women in Science awards.
She is also the producer of several Caribbean Science documentaries, the editor of The Intellectual – art, science and architecture and Eureka! magazines and is heavily engaged in science popularization in the media. She has won three excellence in teaching awards, including an international award (Distinguished Teacher Award from Association of Atlantic Universities).
Dr. Haque is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. She helped to develop the annual STEM conference at the University College of the Cayman Islands and has been involved in every one of these conferences since inception in 2012. She has run several workshops for teachers in the Caribbean and was chair for revision of Physics with the CXC board.
