Engaging Forces Senior High Technical School Students with STEM Skills and Careers

Global Lab Network’s outreach initiative dubbed ‘Community Action’ is aimed at spiking the interest of young Ghanaians in STEM, through presentations, workshops, and hands-on activities. It also enables our Community members to give back while building on their planning, organising, leadership, and public speaking skills.

Jacob Amengor leading a session on WASH at 2019 Nneka World Changers Camp

Recently, we partnered with Forces Old Students Association (FOSA) to engage current students of Forces Senior High Technical School at Burma Camp, Accra, through a one-day programme. The programme was focused on teaching students to develop their creativity and problem solving skills, and exposing them to a myriad of career opportunities possible with a STEM degree.

In the first session, Gameli Adzaho, who joined the session remotely via Zoom, highlighted the importance of developing creativity and problem-solving skills. He shared tips on how students can become better problem solvers, emphasising the importance of learning, networking, and gaining valuable experiences. Through examples of two young innovators, Kelvin Doe and Richard Turere, the students appreciated that it was possible to find solutions to some common local challenges even with minimal resources. The main takeaway from that session was the importance of applying knowledge gained from STEM to impact lives in local communities and around the world.

Next, Evans Owusu gave a talk on “Physics: the path to 21st century success.” Through this presentation he exposed students to various career options including Law, Education, Environment & Energy, Engineering, Media, Research, Information Technology, Finance, and High-Tech, open to people with STEM backgrounds. He went on to outline the skills one is likely to acquire from studying STEM degrees such as computing, report writing, critical thinking, programming, problem solving, and communication, among others. On key attitudes needed for success in STEM fields, Evans stressed the importance of passion, consistency, determination, resilience, as well as dedication.

Evans presenting to an attentive audience of students

Overall, it was a wonderful experience for the team to support FOSA in their bid to widen the horizons of the students and expose them to new possibilities. Over the past few years, we have been delivering sessions to young people in schools, universities, churches, and communities in both rural and urban areas. Some of the other topics we have covered so far include Design Thinking, Digital Literacy, Science Communication, and Environmental Stewardship. To learn more about Global Lab Network’s activities, kindly like our Facebook page, or if you would like to be more involved you can even join our Community!

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