Under joint collaboration between Arab American University and the Ministry of Education, AAUP announced the beginning of the second phase of “STEAM Palestine” program that focuses on encouraging the interest in Sciences, Math, Technology and Arts. This program targets the students and teachers of the schools in Jenin, Qabatya and Tubas.
The activities were announced about in an opening session moderated by Ms. Marina Da’ibis – the Public Relations Officer in AAUP and attended by Dr. Seba Shank- the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, Mr. Hani Daraghmeh- the Director of the Art/Technical Department in the Directorate of Education in Jenin, Mr. Fadi Jumaa- the Public Relations Manager in AAUP, along with some staff and Faculty members of AAUP, representatives from the Directorate of Education in Jenin, Qabatya and Tubas, participated students and their supervising teachers.
Mr. Fadi Jumaa- the PR Manager in AAUP started the session by welcoming the guests and participants and transferred the greetings of Prof. Ali Zeidan Abu Zuhri. Mr. Jumaa said that Arab American University keeps its doors open to all Palestinian organizations to organize their activities in the university and emphasized on the importance of the joint collaboration between AAUP and the Ministry of Education for the benefit of the students.
Dr. Seba Shanak- the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences in AAUP praised the role of the Ministry of Education and stressed on how valuable such programs are with such aiming missions including the interaction of students with the practical life. She said that we believe that this initiative will have great positive outcomes all for the interest of students.
Mr. Hani Daraghmeh thanked the organizers of this program from the university, the ministry and the Directorates of Education in Jenin, Tubas and Qabatya and said that “STEAM Palestine” focuses on sciences in general in an integrative way and improves in the thinking skills of students, their scientific research skills, problem solving skills and the team work.
In addition, Mr. Daraghmeh said that this program applies different methodologies in education and focuses on skills such as observing, analyzing and explaining along with other methodologies of scientific research that contribute in developing the critical thinking and problem solving skills of students. He added that he has great expectations from this program and that it will improve the quality of education and the creative daily life skills to deal with the contemporary sciences.
Mr. Daraghmeh also gave an advice to students to enjoy this program and what it provides of the scientific phenomena and their applications and how this program provides the motivation to reconsider some of the current cases from a critical point of view and provides the chance to go deep in the developed scientific research. Students will be able to initiate research and analyze upon participating in this program.
The Ministry of Education has launched the trail “STEAM Palestine” in summer 2019 under collaboration with the Palestinian universities. This program aims to develop the critical thinking skills and creativity in school students and enhance the positive feelings towards sciences, mathematics and technology, and so the ministry worked with a national team to develop the reference frame including the activities, the participated organizations and the number of targeted students and teachers.
“STEAM Palestine” activities in its second phase in Arab American University will be for 5 days and the participants of 6 groups will visit the Chemistry laboratories, the Allied Medical laboratories and the Nursing and Multimedia laboratories. Participants will be introduced to the main topics of the program, the research, the education programs and the mechanism of managing the program.
