Learning Through Play and the Joy of STEM!
As young children, learning through play is innate to us. It’s how we explore the world and navigate surroundings. In fact, UNICEF describes play as ‘an essential for learning’. When children are actively involved and engaged in a task or new experience, they are far more likely to take lessons from it. [1]
What is Learning Through Play?
Learning through play allows children to experiment, to get things wrong, and try again in a different way - in other words, testing and revising a hypothesis. Children are, by their nature, little scientists! Allowing children to learn in this way encourages a mindset of perseverance and innovation. [2]
Rather than memorisation, there is a wealth of research that suggests children retain more knowledge when it was achieved in a ‘hands-on’ way. [3] Therefore, we believe it is our responsibility as educators to give children these active learning opportunities to really get to grips with scientific concepts.
Companies educating children through play
Here are some great examples of where we believe learning through play has been successfully achieved with STEM and sustainability education:
1. Lego produce STEM specific sets at all levels that introduce children to everything from engineering to space, from dinosaurs to coding! The sets aim to encourage a STEM skillset in children including curiosity, innovation and collaboration. [4]
2. Pupils Profit is an eco-friendly company with an enterprise driven approach to learning through play. They facilitate children with a toolkit that enables them to set up either an Eco Refill shop or a healthy tuck shop! The children get to plan, set up and operate their own shop, allowing them to develop skills in team work, leadership and problem solving. Simultaneously, they’ll learn about how to support the environment. [5]
Team Repair's approach
Learning through play sits at the heart of Team Repair’s mission. We design repair kits that let children fix real gadgets which have faults designed into them, as a way of empowering them to harness their natural curiosity. As they take gadgets apart to repair them, they also get to explore the science behind the components, engaging them with both STEM and sustainability in a hands-on way.
One primary merit of learning through play is the room it allows for joy. If a child has a positive experience of learning they’ll want to keep doing it! [6]
That’s why when we go back through kid’s feedback slips, our favourite word to see written down is “fun”! By getting a student to fix a broken console and then play games on it, or fix the steering on an RC car and then run speed experiments, we aim to create a positive association with science and learning. We’ve had a few adults ask why we don’t teach kids how to fix toasters, kettles, phones etc., and to put it simply, we get kids taking apart and fixing games consoles and RC cars because they’re just more fun!
The skills they’ll learn from these kits will give them the confidence to give repairing a go in their everyday lives, as well as taking science out of the classroom and into the world around them. Join us in our repair mission and lets get the next generation fixing through play!
[1] https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/UNICEF-Lego-Foundation-Learning-through-Play.pdf
[2] https://learningthroughplay.com/explore-the-research/the-scientific-case-for-learning-through-play
[3]https://cde-lego-cms-prod.azureedge.net/media/wmtlmbe0/learning-through-play_web.pdf
[5]https://www.pupilsprofit.com/
[6]https://cde-lego-cms-prod.azureedge.net/media/0vvjvscx/learningthroughplay_areview_summary.pdf
