STEM and Health in Communities across Ghana through the Pavlis Honors College

STEM Education: This portion of the project focuses on finding creative and interactive ways to expand on the STEM portion of the curriculum in schools in both Babianeha and Sunyani. STEM education in Ghana is largely based around lectures and the goal of the project is to engage the students outside of that norm and encourage them to challenge the problems they will face throughout life in innovative ways. This will be achieved by developing a set of demonstrations and activities prior to travel based on the curriculum provided by teachers and also collaborating with teachers in the schools to develop new methods that combine the collectively shared knowledge between both groups.

Women's Health: Women’s health is not formally taught in Ghana, and young women are often left afraid and confused with their bodies. Compounding the issue, young women in rural areas often do not have access to sanitary products and may be forced to stay home from school while menstruating. Missing one week of school each month is highly detrimental to their education, so by hosting workshops designed to educate these young women about their bodies and teach them how to make reusable sanitary pads, this project will give young women access to an uninterrupted education, empowering them to pursue their life’s goals.

Community Center: This project will take place in the Babianeha Community Center. We would like to acquire books for the age groups between 8 and 16 years old with an emphasis in STEM literature and some in leisure literature. The center currently has books designed for a kindergarten reading level as well as high school/college level textbooks and we would like to facilitate in opening up a larger selection of literature to the local students of Babianeha. We would like to build some STEM kits for interactive education at the community center as well. We hope that this could aid in education at the local schools and provide more resources outside of the classroom.

UENR Collaboration: While the projects are designed to have a lasting positive impact, the projects themselves are really only completed during the 5 weeks that a team from Ghana is there. In order to ensure that the impacts of these projects are not only positive but are also felt more steadily throughout the year, we plan to seek out organizations at the University of Energy and Natural Resources to partner with. By forging these new partnerships, we not only bring in more knowledge but also help to ensure that the work we started in-country does not fade away once we leave. These partnerships also help to ensure that the projects stay relevant and address the problems the communities truly face, not just the ones we see at first glance.