There is a quote that is often attributed to one of the founding fathers of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits: Give me the child for the first seven years, and I will give you the man. The idea is that what a child learns in their early years will shape their adult life. The attribution is in doubt, but the idea is not. Children’s habits and ideas form early on. We may talk about — and, indeed, engage with — lifelong learning, but there is little question that our interests well into adulthood are strongly affected by our childhood experiences.
The importance of early learning and experience
Why does this matter? It is particularly important in specialisms and subjects like data science, but also in other science and mathematical subjects. If a child is turned off science early on — or simply never gets interested in the first place, and finds the whole subject a matter of indifference — then they are unlikely to discover a love of science and mathematics later. Even if they do, they will struggle to act on it, because they will probably lack the necessary grounding in technical subjects. Unlike history, you cannot learn mathematics from scratch by reading or doing internet tutorials.
Even data scientists would probably admit that maths and science are hard. There is little or no room for opinion, or being ‘almost right’. The answer is either correct or it is not. Some children like this ‘black and white’ world, but many others struggle — and so do many teachers. Few brilliant mathematicians choose to become primary school teachers, and many primary school teachers may have found maths extremely hard themselves. How, then, can they be expected to enthuse the children they are teaching?
Even if children make it through primary school with an interest in science and mathematics intact, what about secondary school? Maths is not always ‘cool’, with its association of ‘geekiness’, and it remains hard work.
School vs. work
It is also hard for children to relate what they do at school with ‘real world’ jobs. Apart from their maths teachers, who do they see using maths and science every day? Accountants, perhaps? Pharmacists and other health professionals? Yes, but not so overtly that a child would notice. The role models are not obvious, and neither are the applications. How, then, can future employers and universities encourage children to think of a career in a mathematical or science discipline?
One answer is competitions, and particularly those sponsored by industry. This type of competition has been around for many years, but perhaps historically focused more on design and applied art, rather than applied mathematics. Other more recent manifestations, however, have been based on coding and programming. Examples include the Italian Forma Mentis Innovaction Awards.
The 2018 version of this competition will involve 30 students from 30 different Italian schools. The students will be divided into six teams of five. The focus of the competition is domotics, or domestic robotics, focusing on designs and technologies that improve the quality of life on a domestic scale. Teams are required to consider greenhouse or botanical gardens, and ways of growing plants. They will need to think about more sustainable methods of small-scale horticulture, including energy-saving approaches. They will have to use particular software, including some SAS applications for data management.
The aim of the project is to provide the students with some high quality technical training and development that will enable them to deliver an innovative project together. The students will, however, clearly need more than technical skills: They will also need to be able to work together as a team, with people they have never met before.
Opening up opportunities
It is a wonderful opportunity for those involved to develop their skills and get a taste of both the world of work, and how they might apply their scientific and mathematical knowledge in future. The selection of 30 students from 30 different schools is also clever: The spread of information to other students will be much greater than if the competitors came from fewer schools. Each young person will, effectively, be an ambassador both for the competition and the wider learning.
Like hackathons, industry-sponsored competitions for school-age children have advantages for children and sponsors alike. The benefits may be slightly less direct for the sponsors, however. Those who sponsor such competitions have clearly realised that encouraging young people to consider a career in science is essential if they are to continue to have a high quality pool of talent from which to recruit in future years.
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