This term, Yiya-trained teachers at Archbishop Orombi Secondary School and Lira Town College, both Yiya partner schools in Lira District- Northern Uganda, taught their students to apply the knowledge of science, mathematics and agriculture to design a technology that solves the problem of crop pests. The technology they made is an organic pesticide, which contained extracts from onion, garlic, neem, chili pepper, and other local herbs. Students worked in groups to research about the bacterial and fungal killing properties of the components that are contained in those ingredients and harnessed those properties to create their technology!
Students followed an iterative process of experimenting and prototyping until they came up with an effective product. Educators and the Yiya team supported students to follow the engineering design process, a step-by-step guide on how to create a relevant, feasible, and needs-based technology.
The sampled farmers around their school that tried this organic pesticide appreciated it and were impressed by the fact that students created it. This organic pesticide, when sprayed on crops, can repel most common crop pests!
In the STEM Educator Training (SET) that we conducted with teachers this past April, we challenged teachers to design a STEM curriculum with about 4-6 lessons that teaches students to design a technology that solves an agricultural problem. This is one of the lessons that teachers designed after the workshop and we are so impressed by these teachers for implementing their lessons. We are also grateful to our field team in Lira for ensuring that these teachers got all the materials they requested to implement their units.
Over 83% of youths lack jobs in Uganda (largely because of lacking employability skills), but we believe that this kind of education will change the status quo!