Lùng Thị Hoài (second, left) and her electric firework device in 2021 STEM festival in Si Ma Cai District, the northern mountainous province of Lào Cai. Photo khoahocphattrien.vn LÀO CAI — Lùng Thị Hoài, a Nùng ethnic minority student of Nàn Sán Secondary School, uses equipment to show off electric fireworks she and her peers made to celebrate the 2021 STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) festival in Si Ma Cai District, the northern mountainous province of Lào Cai. STEM is an approach to learning and development that integrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Students are expected to develop their skills through STEM education including problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, curiosity, decision making and acceptance of failure. Hundreds of students in the district have benefited from STEM education. This was the first year the STEM festival had been held in the district – one of the poorest districts of the country after the provincial Department of Education and Training Department issued a document to instruct the implementation of STEM education in secondary schools in September 2020. Nguyễn Thị Kiều Oanh, head of the district’s Education and Training Office, said officials of the department had visited many localities to plan the festival. The festival was not only a chance for the students to show off the electric firework device but also run toy cars on race tracks using kinetic energy, Khoa học và Phát Triển (Science and Development) online newspaper reported. Also at the festival, the office invited two students in Lý Tự Trọng Secondary School in the province’s Lào Cai City to operate a robot, programmed by them, Oanh said. The two students won the first prize in the robotics competition in the north, held by the Central Youth Union in November 2020, she added. Oanh said the office wanted students in Nàn Sán Secondary School to do more in the next festivals, such as …
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