Building confidence in STEM students through breaking (unseen) barriers

Abstract

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects have historically struggled to be inclusive and accessible to students from diverse backgrounds. The field of geoscience, in particular, has also had challenges in diversity with respect to staff and student recruitment. The consequence of non-inclusive practices still propagates today, with certain demographics not engaging in STEM activities. As a result, there needs to be conscious efforts to adopt equity, diversity, and inclusive (EDI) initiatives for subjects such as geoscience to grow. In this article, we outline the steps we have taken to break down known (and unknown) barriers to education in the teaching of a science outreach course to a diverse student body. Our outreach course, Think Like A Scientist, has been running in a number of English prisons since 2019. Although the programme is tailored to the restrictive prison environment, the application of its core principles to education are fundamental EDI practices that could be beneficial to a wide audience. In this paper, we outline our reasoning for specific pedagogical choices in the classroom when working with students that have low confidence in STEM education, and we highlight the need for engagement that is not only relatable, accessible, and inclusive but also offers encouragement.