I am pretty sure that most of you are aware of the word ‘robotics’ but in case you are not it would be wise to begin with a simple explanation of this discipline. As its name indicates the field of robotics is directly associated with artificial intelligence and computer science by extension. Nowadays, we can safely say that robotics plays a basic and irreplaceable role in plenty of fields and this role is about to grow more within the next few years. In addition we should not forget that robots are already in operation and a lot of processes have become automatic without any interference by humans. To realize this situation we can simply think that right now an important number of shops operate without an employee inside. Of course, the day when robots will be literally everywhere is probably far away from today and maybe this is not what humanity needs but we will not analyze that in this article.
Given that robotics is a major that is about to grow dramatically in the future we should wonder if it would be essential to start incorporating it at school. The answer is obviously yes. STEM education is here to cover this gap. First and foremost, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and it is about the teaching of robotics mainly at school. At Columbia University the question was as follows: “How can we make learning so meaningful that students will stay at school, achieve high grades and enter university? ”. The answer was simple: Students must be educated in order to perceive that their own prosperity depends on the quality of our planet and as a result their education must include plenty of subjects such as the adaptation to climate change, the protection of water sources etc..
In other words, the method of STEM provides opportunities for the development of skills encouraging children to answer lots of questions and be involved in activities which are related to maths, science, engineering and technology. At this point, it is of utmost importance to mention that STEM education already plays a significant role in the financial life of the U.S. and E.U. since most jobs are expected to require a background in the discipline of engineering, technology and mathematics.
Moreover, in order to understand and realize the economic contribution of STEM we can just look back around 5 years ago when the former president of the U.S. stated that more than 1 billion dollars have been invested in such programs. On top of that, in 2014 the National STEM Centre was established in London.
Taking everything into consideration, we can safely say that as an immediate consequence of robotics’ development, STEM is here to stay and all disciplines can be benefited by this situation especially that of education which concerns the future of the world; the youth.
