Taking a hands-on approach to STEM

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This article was published 31/05/2022 (1206 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After enduring two years of virtual instruction, Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School continued to usher in the return of its in-person STEM programming on Tuesday, hosting an hour-long workshop that gave students the opportunity to learn about different medical techniques.

This workshop was led by Dr. Paige Baldwin, a Crocus graduate who, alongside a group of her fellow physicians, taught these high school students the proper way to suture a wound, intubate a patient and deliver a baby.

Talking to the Sun before this session took place, Baldwin said she is excited to be able to provide this kind of in-person instruction again, since these complex techniques cannot be properly communicated using the online format that’s dominated school curricula throughout much of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Hands-on [learning] lets them really see what things we get to do in medicine and discover the practical aspects of it, the procedural aspects,” she said. “We can talk about it all we want, but they’re not going to appreciate it the same unless they get to do it themselves.”

Tuesday’s workshop was organized by Crocus’ STEM for Girls program, which was originally created by student Zeel Patel in 2018-19 to highlight career opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math to underrepresented groups.

Physics teacher Christopher Sarkonak, who helped Patel get STEM for Girls off the ground, said he is happy that the loosening of COVID restrictions throughout the current school year has allowed in-person events to return, even if the program survived the pivot to digital in 2021.

“We managed to get some world-renowned women in science to go ahead and be our speakers [online], because the pandemic kind of freed up their schedules,” Sarkonak said.

“But this year we got back to doing in-person events and honestly it’s most successful when we have our own teachers and even local people going ahead and doing it.”

Even though Baldwin obtained her doctorate at the University of Saskatchewan and is pursuing a residency in Winnipeg, she still maintains a lot of direct connections to the Brandon community and Crocus specifically.

Not only do her mother, father and husband work as teachers at the school, but Baldwin’s two younger sisters are currently enrolled as students.

Baldwin’s sister Faith is currently the main student in charge of the STEM for Girls program and actively sought out her older sibling to lead this workshop, hoping she would inspire her fellow students to enter the medical field.

“I’ve always wanted to do it since age 11 or 12, probably when my sister went into university and I started seeing what she was doing,” Faith said. “It really piqued my interest.”

With graduation on the horizon, Faith is getting ready to follow in her sister’s footsteps, having enrolled in the University of Saskatchewan to study biomedical sciences.

In terms of advice for students like Faith who are looking to pursue medicine in a post-secondary environment, Baldwin emphasizes the importance of adopting a holistic and community-based approach to their studies.

“You want to know what’s going on in the community, you want to be able to help people and you want to see the kind of life they’ve been living,” she said. “So volunteering, in that aspect, is really important.”

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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