Status of Women Committee on May 4th, 2017

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

That's fantastic.

I'd like to go back to something that Sean mentioned with regard to “STEAM”. There's this great program going on in St. Thomas. The Thames Valley District School Board will be putting 80 children through a STEAM program, where they'll be accepting high school students so they will do STEM plus the arts—the entire build. I think we can really invest in programs like that. It was great to see our local school board get on top of something like that.

Have you seen program likes this across the country, or within your field, that are being extended so that we're beginning to think outside the box and not necessarily just in the normal classroom terms, that “here's your theory, and this is how it goes”? Are you seeing more of that, either of you? Are you seeing those changes? How could we do that better in terms of education sources?

[Jennifer Flanagan]

I think just adding the “A” is not going to do anything. People ask us all the time if we should shift to STEAM. We've always had arts and design as part of the content that we do.

You know, STEM doesn't equal innovation. STEM does not equal, necessarily, the—

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

With regard to the STEAM program we're doing, I would just add that I brought the person from the Canadian Centre for Product Validation down to it from the college. He was excited because it's outside the box. They're adding this, because when I talk about the “A”, they're talking about the marketing side of things, the promotional side of things, about taking a product and how you can get it to market.

So I wouldn't say it's just about adding the “A”. I'm talking about it being much more inclusive than that.

[Jennifer Flanagan]

I think that is essential. We hear from high school students across the country that they have lots of opportunity to get good science and tech skills. They have very little opportunity to apply them. That's the big challenge we have in Canada. We're great at the ideas and not great at the implementation side of things. That also comes with how we measure students. These high school students will say, “Look, I don't have support from my parents or from anyone to do anything that could affect my marks negatively.” So on the risk-taking and application side of things, yes, they're very challenged. They don't have as many opportunities for that.

Programs like that, if they can create a space where they're evaluating them in a way that will still make everyone happy, I think are fantastic, and they are definitely happening across the country.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

So you are seeing things such as that happen. That's fantastic.

[Jennifer Flanagan]

We need to figure out how to measure it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm going to cut you off. Unfortunately, we are at the end of our time.

It's been exciting to have you both as witnesses today. We could certainly speak all day about these topics. Thank you very much for your testimony.

If you think of things that you want the committee to know, feel free to send them to the clerk.

Thank you to the committee. That was a great meeting.