Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Jia County: Girls Can Do It! SUMMARY
The project “Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - Girls Can Do IT!” contributes to the long term empowerment of girls and young women, from rural Jia County in Shaanxi Province, to pursue a future career of their own choice. The direct purpose is to integrate STEM education in the targeted schools and to give rural school children, in particular girls (age 10-14/grade 4-8) from Jia County of Shaanxi Province, more interest and confidence in pursuing a higher learning in STEM related fields.
To achieve this, capacity of local government and schools will be built to promote and roll out enriched STEM education curricula for implementation in school clubs, with a special focus on girls’ participation in Jia County (outcome 1). 800 girls and boys (65%/35%) have built their capacity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, life skills and gender equality through participation in enriched STEM education offered in the after school clubs (outcome 2). Over the last years, the government started developing a provincial economic demonstration zone in Jia County, being Yujia Economic and Technological Development Zone. At present, several high-tech enterprises  have moved into the zone, and there will hopefully be more career opportunities related to STEM in the future in Jia County. Apart from this zone, there are hardly any large-scale enterprises or companies in the county. The Women's Federation, the League Committee and the Science and Technology Associations are the few social and governmental organizations in Jia County. 
A large numbers of local residents migrate from their homes in the countryside to urban areas for better job opportunities and leave their children behind in their home communities with caregivers. As these left-behind children often lack emotional communication with their parents for a long time, they are tending to be introverted and unwilling to voluntarily express their inner thoughts. Therefore, they are often running into problems such as anxiety, depression, and stress from study and interpersonal strain in life and super-sensitivity, emotional instability.  Rural girls in Jia County face a dual hurdle in taking advantage of digitalization. They have less opportunities to access to ICT that their urban peers. Even in case they could have access to ICT, girls are not necessarily encouraged to engaged with digital tools and to develop their skills due to prevailing patriarchal attitudes and gender stereotyping. 
By introducing STEM education to rural primary and secondary schools in Jia County, we are aiming to bridge the gap for girls in rural Jia County, and to convince the government to invest more in this rural area. Children will be encouraged to take the initiative for their own development process and to participate in the STEM project, to support them to think, explore, reflect and solve problems. The project “Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - Girls Can Do IT!” intends to contribute to the long term impact that Girls and young women, from rural Jia County in Shaanxi Province, are empowered to pursue a future career of their own choice. The direct project purpose is to integrate STEM education in the targeted schools and to give rural school children, in particular girls (age 10-14/grade 4-8) from Jia County of Shaanxi Province, more interest and confidence in pursuing a higher learning in STEM related fields by the end of the project in 2021.
To achieve this, capacity of local government and schools will be built to promote and roll out enriched STEM education curricula for implementation in school clubs, with a special focus on girls’ participation in Jia County (outcome 1). And 800 girls and boys (65%/35%) have built their capacity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, life skills and gender equality through participation in enriched STEM education offered in the after school clubs (outcome 2). Education and STEM are the responsibility of the Chinese government. However, Plan sees a huge gap between developed coastal areas in Eastern China and the underdeveloped areas in Western China, and also the difference between urban and rural areas. Since 2017, the Chinese government has officially announced the start of STEM Education. Due to limited availability of funds, technology, and human resources, STEM Education is only implemented in some urban schools with better economic conditions. A guideline to integrate STEM education in the regular curriculum of primary and secondary schools is lacking. Educational authorities, school principals and teachers in poor rural areas have even hardly heard about STEM education. Therefore, Plan International is aiming to explore and demonstrate feasible methodologies to carry out STEM education in rural schools in marginalised areas, while at the same time promoting gender equality and building children’s confidence. The ultimate aim is that awareness and capacity of local education authorities and schools on STEM and gender equality is build and that they will integrate STEM in the regular curriculum. The demonstration and success of STEM projects will gain more empirical experience and more convincing for Shaanxi education authorities to implement STEM Education in rural schools of Shaanxi Province in the future.
In 2017, a half year pilot project on STEM has been implemented in Shaanxi Province, using Scratch as programming tool. Based on the learnings from the pilot phase, a full project plan has been developed for Chunhua and Pucheng Counties in Shaanxi Province, using Robotics curriculum because this is offering a development path with different stages to be followed in small groups. The STEM project in Chunhua and Pucheng Counties started in September 2018 and is supported by ASML Foundation for an amount of EUR 350,000. The project will directly benefit 800 children (65% girl, 35% boy) from 15 rural primary and secondary schools in Jia County in Shaanxi province. It will also directly benefit a cohort of 45 teachers. 1)	STEM and creativity education philosophy
In order to cultivate student’s creativity, ingenuity, and enthusiasm on their project works, we will adopt the innovative education methodology of creative learning spiral developed by MIT Media Lab , to engage children in creative learning process of imagine – create – play – share – reflect – imagine. Drawing on experiences from more than thirty years at MIT's Media Lab, Professor Mitchel Resnick concludes that the best way to cultivate creativity for children is to support them working projects based on their passions, in collaboration with peers and in a playful spirit. Robotic programming course helps children learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively, which are essential skills for life in the 21st century.
2)	Robotic programming course pathway
Plan International China and partner Roboterra will conduct jointly an assessment on the students’ situation and their needs on STEM education in the targeted schools. Based on the results, robotic programming course pathway for rural girls and boys (age 10-14/grade 4-8) will be provided, to inspire students’ inner engineers and put students, especially girls on the path to pursue and succeed in higher level STEM fields.
More than 50 built-in robotic projects are classified into different levels. Hence, children can learn the coding skill as from a beginner to an expert. What’s more, children are able to unlock and explore the new project after they complete the previous challenges. In the beginning robot project will include step by step tutorials broken down into: Building Challenges, Coding Challenges, Knowledge Challenges. These projects are called “Closed” projects because students will be provided with every step of instruction. As students will progress, they will be exposed to “Open” Projects which have much limited instructions but inspire true creativity.

3)	Robotic curriculum and student assessment methodology

•	Based on the lessons learned and the needs assessment, Plan International will work with Roboterra to develop or improve existing robotic curriculum and relevant computer tools with Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology for children, especially girls in rural schools to provide them opportunity to follow their interests and passions, and to become more confident to try new things and express themselves, to work together with their peers, and to be more comfortable with taking risks and making mistakes. The creativity education philosophy of creative learning spiral developed by MIT Media Lab will be used, to engage children in creative learning process. An online learning platform will be implemented to inspect students’ work and give them feedback timely, so students can easily follow the instruction to create their own project. They are able to figure out the problems through watching 3D interactive demonstration by themselves, instead of raising hands and asking teacher specific questions repeatedly, so that students can improve their self-learning ability and teachers can focus on implement of the class.
•	Plan International will work with Roboterra to develop a student assessment methodology to objectively measure performance of students learning on robotics programming courses. Students should not only be assessed on their ability in coding but also their ability in expressing the project’s significance and development process (Communications skills), and their ability in collaborating with other members (Collaboration skills).

4)	Life skills and gender equality training to students
The target students will also receive training on life skills and gender equality, including building self-confidence, choosing positive values, active listening, positive communication, decision making skills, knowledge on cyber security and on-line bullying, creative thinking and solving problems skills. The purpose is to equip children, especially girls in rural secondary schools and high-grade of primary schools, with capabilities and opportunities to participate in affairs that affect their development, through interventions including career guidance, life skills, so as to ensure their smooth transition from school to society, and get better prepared for decent work and independent life. The design of the project has followed a participatory approach facilitated by Plan International China in collaboration with the partner and other stakeholders. Plan International China and the partner through their daily interaction with girls and boys in schools, have included the perspective of girls and boys into the design of the project. This process has strengthened the relationships between Plan International China and the partner and ensured that the partner has ownership of the project. The project’s partnership continues through implementation, with a key goal being to build the capacity of local partners to carry out the project. The formed core technical team will be responsible for delivering the ToT for master teachers, and gender awareness-raising trainings and supporting the technology campaigns. Building the capacity of the project partners will provide them with the skills and capacity to continue the work to implement and improve the project over time.  The project will establish the online teacher’ support network and support local education bureaus to develop their promotion plan on STEM education. These ways will gradually standardize their regular activities and make the alliance functional, during project implementing process, even after the project ends. Plan International China will continue to transfer its knowledge and skills to the stakeholders involved in this project, by contributing its growing technical resources to the online public platforms and the information sharing system that are to be set up in this project and will continue to function with support from partners upon project completion.