Playful & Frugal STEMBucket Programme

The STEMBucket © programme stems from the idea and desire to make STEM subjects more fun and enjoyable for students in schools by transforming everyday household objects into fascinating and exciting STEM-based projects that children can work on with teachers and peers. During the pandemic in 2021, a pilot initiative was launched. The programme was innovatively executed in three different modes: physical, online, and hybrid.

At home, STEMBucket © programme has demonstrated that science can still be fun and engaging across all modes of execution. The most important takeaway for both the children and mentors was that science could be explored using household materials. The community members showed a high degree of interest and participation in the activities, emphasising the values of scientific knowledge in everyday life.

The project involved 200 participants; 100 students from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, aged 24 to 27 years, pursuing a bachelor’s degree, and 100 young children aged 10 to 12 years. Since the university students are in various parts of Malaysia, they were divided into groups based on their location or the nearest location. Each group was expected to reach out to a minimum of one child each. Due to the Movement Control Order/pandemic lockdown, the selected children can either be a family member or someone from their neighbourhood.