Speaker 1: 0:16

Dr Bonnie Schmidt is the founder and president of let's Talk Science. It's an award-winning national Canadian charitable organization that she started way back in 1991. Let's Talk Science helps children and youth fulfill their potential and prepare for their future careers and citizenship roles by supporting their learning through science, technology, engineering and math engagement. We had a great conversation about let's Talk Science, starting off its intent, its direction and how it sees the future of education across our beautiful Canadian country. I hope you enjoy this conversation and please be sure to check out let's Talk Science. There's so much there for educators here in Quebec but also across the country. Enjoy Shifted podcast here again.

Speaker 1: 1:14

What a pleasure do I have today? I am welcoming the founder CEO of let's Talk Science, a Canada-wide service. Bonnie Schmidt is with us here today to kind of well, maybe not kind of to talk about science and why it's important and maybe a little look into our future. Things change so quickly, hence this podcast shifted. We are continuously shifting and adapting and Bonnie's going to shed some light for us on some of our STEM or STEAM education. So, bonnie, thanks so much for hopping on here today. It's a real, real pleasure to talk to you.

Speaker 2: 1:55

I'm delighted to be here, chris, and I have to say I love the name of the podcast. It's really future oriented and recognizing that everything is changing, everything is shifting, so thrilled to be here, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Yeah, I mean it kind of spurred out of the pandemic where we were just trying to connect people together through these casts, but it's evolved now into yeah, looking at the shifting nature. Bunny, I like to start off always by just kind of maybe getting a little bit about you um, how, how did you get involved in maybe not particularly, let's talk science, but how did you kind of, what were your stepping stones to get into? Um, you know, science, math, steam education, what was your catalyst?

Speaker 2: 2:41

it's actually a wonderful time to be able to reflect, and reflect out loud, because we're just wrapping up our 30th anniversary with then. I started let's Talk Science so like 32 years ago as a project. But if I think back to when I was younger, my mom was a trained nurse and so I was in an environment in which health and life sciences were often talked about. But like so many other people, I think my real interest in science and, I have to say, biology in particular was inspired by a high school teacher who was so animated in bringing biology and life sciences to life and I couldn't help but really lean in. I was also really fortunate and this was like way back in the 80s, which is dating myself but I had a peer group of other young female students who were all leaning into science.

Speaker 2: 3:34

So this whole cohort was almost an assumption that we would continue on in a science-based discipline, and for me at that point in time, I was really leaning into dentistry, interestingly enough, and that's a whole other podcast as to what happened there, so I was really interested in life sciences, a little bit in the medical side, but never really was interested in being a doctor, was interested in dentistry, continued on to university in which I failed my first year physics and calculus course and by year four everything was going well when it came to performance on tests and whatnot. But when I did the dental entry exam I failed the manual dexterity carving test twice. Okay on the content side, realized I have no spatial orientation whatsoever and found myself at odds. So I had done this undergrad degree in science and found that I had no plan B because I was just so stereotyped into thinking if I had a science training, then there was one of you know three or four jobs that I could do. If I had a science training, then there was one of you know three or four jobs that I could do Was rescued by a female scientist one of the few at the time at Western University and pursued graduate training.

Speaker 2: 4:55

And so my love for life sciences, in particular my lack of performance in math and physics and my lack of a plan B, really really fed into the beginning of let's Talk Science, which I did start while I was doing a PhD in physiology in the early 90s, during the economic recession, in which funding to scientific research was really cut, and at that point in time we really just had the three granting councils right the Medical Research Council, nserc, which still exists, and SSHRC, which also still exists, and there was really no outreach that was happening at the time. So I found myself in a post-secondary environment doing research at a time when there was really not much connection with community and the research community, and a point in time when funding to the research enterprise was cut quite significantly. So, the stars aligned, you can dig into the formation of the organization if you want at that point in time, but that really got me to a place of recognizing that something needed to be done.

Speaker 1: 6:05

Right, it's fascinating too that you mentioned that that spark came from a teacher, and I just had a podcast with another educator who said the exact same thing that all the content in the world wouldn't have influenced them to do a certain thing other than that relationship that they had with that teacher and it just sparked his love for, similar to what you were just mentioning, which I find the power of a teacher and those relationships. We just we can't overlook those, particularly at a start of a new school year, right when that's where you're starting to create those foundations of relationships and trust with your students.

Speaker 2: 6:46

Well, you know, the critical role of a teacher is actually the heart of everything we do at let's Talk Science. You know, 30 years later we know that teachers are enablers or catalysts. They induce these sparks and they really shape young people in a critical way and they need support. So that's what some of the work that we do.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Right, right. So 1991 was when let's Talk Science began. It's this journey that it's still on today. What were some of the intents when you first started? You had mentioned community connections. What were some of your objectives when you were starting this organization?

Speaker 2: 7:27

So back in 1991, I have to say it was incredibly naive, right? So what was really happening in the environment was funding to the research enterprise was really being cut quite significantly. My father was a teacher. He taught history and economics in the London community. My father was a teacher, he taught history and economics in the London community and I really just felt that there was a lack of connection between the university and the school environment. So, very simply, I sent out notes to high school teachers in the science areas around London and asked if they'd be interested in having better access to the university to learn more about the STEM programming. And there was no acronym back then.

Speaker 2: 8:07

So, like you know, with the science programming there was such interest that in the early days it was really just about connecting graduate students with teachers in London to figure out what was it that teachers needed in order to be able to access the resources.

Speaker 2: 8:24

So the early years it was about research. But it didn't take long before A I finished my PhD in 93. And by that point in time there were several universities really interested in what we were doing in the community, a lot of interest from the school boards and some donors to say let's dig into this opportunity to connect post-secondary better into the school environment. And that's really when a more concerted journey began to understand what teachers needed, how they were or weren't being supported at the time, what was going on with curriculum, how do you actually make a tent that's big enough to bring everybody in? And so I'd say 1993 is really when the formal let's Talk Science journey began. But at the beginning it was really simple let's just connect the community to ensure that young people had a continuous pathway and teachers had continuous access to resources and people.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Wow, and I guess Canada is such an interesting kind of country in the sense for its educational. There's no central ministry across the country, we have provincial ministries of education that create the curriculum, provincial ministries of education that create the curriculum, and yet we have universities across Canada that take in students from all those different provinces. Is there a common thread you find throughout all the provinces educational systems, that that that thread together the sciences in a common way so that when universities or, you know, employees are taking kids on or students on that, they have a base foundation of science or STEAM.

Speaker 2: 10:14

That is such an insightful question. To be honest, if I had understood the complexity of the learning and education ecosystem when I set out on this journey in 1993, I might have thought twice about thinking about national education. Right, Because right now, there's about 22 or more provincial territorial ministries that are responsible for early years, K-12 and post-secondary?

Speaker 1: 10:41

Yes, it's fragmented A lot.

Speaker 2: 10:44

And it's the only developed we're the only developed country in the world that does not have a national or a federal department Ministry of Education. So that aside, what we have at let's Talk Science developed is quite a great expertise and adaptive ability to look at curriculum across the country and identify where there's points of commonalities. Because, yes, every province and territory develops their own curriculum for every subject and every grade, but there really is, there's key themes and one of the best things that did happen from a science perspective was back in 1999 when the Council of Ministers of Education which is the only table where you do have national conversations about education, because all the ministers are there protocol and that provided a long, lasting framework for curriculum development for curriculum developers, as they were creating provincial territorial policies for science. So that has actually led to, at least you know, big, broad brushstrokes of commonality across the country according to age, stage, grade and topic area, which has been quite helpful and a bit of a plug. I'd love to see something like that happen again, because we need more, we need better, we need updating At the post-secondary level.

Speaker 2: 12:12

You could actually take a look at some of the research let's Talk Science has done. Spotlight on Science Learning Reports, for example, in which we have looked at what are the entry requirements for post-secondary. And that's a bit of a double-edged sword, because we do see that many of the requirements haven't changed over the years at all and we'd love to see changes happening there. But they are really common, right. They're like grade 12 chemistry, grade 12 biology, grade 12 calculus, so those tend to be common, right? They're like grade 12 chemistry, grade 12 biology, grade 12 calculus, so those tend to be commonalities right across the country. And there are some assumptions that there might need to be a bit of maybe backfiller changes that happen when you get into first year. But again, we could do a whole other podcast on that difficult, difficult transition from high school into post-secondary and also the awareness raising that needs to happen for young people and educators about the requirement for STEM optional credits at high school and how they will help build bridges to college, to polytechnics, to skilled trades.

Speaker 1: 13:19

Oh, I totally agree. I mean, we overlook our vocational trades too often, I find, where there's such a wealth and a need for those types of people to go into those areas. But it's always kind of been seen as you know, the second choice, you know university is obviously your first choice and then, like again, I think other countries don't see it in those lights.

Speaker 2: 13:46

You know they see them as equal value, which is, again, I don't know, the diversity we have, or and we call things differently too right, like we got college, polytechnic, sajab universities they all kind of come in together under a post-secondary banner. But what's been really interesting is the thread of STEM through all of those areas and, rightly or wrongly, people's attitudes towards different pathways and depending on where you're coming from, they might have different biases against any of the pathways. But STEM is so important for science, technology, engineering and math. I know we'll talk about acronyms in a bit, but the um, that whole thread of importance, regardless of the post-secondary pathway, is largely undiscussed in the country.

Speaker 1: 14:35

I totally agree. I totally like most educators when I go and meet with them or talk with them or we do workshops or webinars or whatnot aren't aware aware of those acronyms as much as I thought they would be. Sometimes like we'll talk with the students about it and we'll do a guessing game as to what it might stand for as a subject in your school. Most of the time they get it the E is a little tricky for them. They're not really quite sure. But um, so tell me a little bit about like. Why is it that STEAM is like so important in your opinion? Like, what does it do for a student that might later grow Well, will later grow up and and move into the workforce? What is it about STEAM education that you find crucial at this time in life?

Speaker 2: 15:27

For us, if you look at our mission statement at let's Talk Science, it's actually about helping kids fulfill their potential and prepare for career and citizenship demands.

Speaker 2: 15:39

So for us, it's really more about the learning platform to help young people understand the world around them, to stay curious about how the world is working and to develop the kinds of skills and knowledge that they're going to need to be engaged citizens and prepare for workplace changes.

Speaker 2: 15:58

Right, we talk a lot about jobs of the future and how it's very difficult to identify what jobs are going to be there. But having a solid STEM STEAM let's talk about acronyms and blowing them up and getting rid of them at some point in time. But you know, thinking about the critical competencies that we need to really be ready to thrive the way the world is changing and there's fewer than six and a half million kids in this country, so the idea that we can leave any of them behind like that's 20% fewer kids in all of this country than there are in the state of California we just simply can't afford to not ensure they're all ready to meet the challenges of the future, whether or not they're going into traditional science, technology-based jobs or they're working in environments in which that comfort level and that you know, the acceptance and understanding of how science might happen, is actually there.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Right, right, yeah, absolutely Really good point. And let's crash up some of these acronyms. Like we always thought that that A in STEM, in the STEAM, was important, because in art you have all of those, I mean the STEAM factors in let's Talk Science of just having it. Stem and I know that that's quite common throughout the world is STEM, and this A has been added. But I saw your TED Talk where you were kind of talking about that a little bit of. I mean, we could have acronyms till the wazoo if we wanted to. Can you elaborate on that a little bit, that difference between STEAM and STEM?

Speaker 2: 17:41

For sure, and our you know our name can actually be a bit of a limitation right With let's Talk Science. To be totally truthful, we only adopted the STEM acronym about a decade ago when I think it was the National Science Foundation started to use it in some of the international work, and so it was almost more of a provocation to say let's actually align with some of the language that was coming out in a variety of different agencies around the world. It really didn't have anything to do with whether or not we appreciated arts, because we are an organization that deeply appreciates the arts, and I would argue that our new programming, especially that developed over the last, say, five years, the big projects, they are integrated, they are holistic, they are multidisciplinary, and rather than do step changes, of saying we're going to change our original acronym that we adopted a decade ago to another acronym, our focus has been how do we get rid of the acronyms, how do we get people talking more about multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, integrated approaches that build competencies? How do we layer in some of the innovative thinking, the creative thinking, into our programming such that young people are really leveraging their whole brain?

Speaker 2: 19:06

This isn't about teaching subjects at let's Talk Science. This is really about understanding, engaging meaningful, relevant learning platforms that are largely issues focused because, let's face it, young people want to be tackling issues that are relevant and important to it. Young people want to be tackling issues that are relevant and important to them, not memorizing definitions. So we've really focused on how do we take an integrated approach to create really meaningful programming, and that's one of the reasons I you know why we haven't really just jumped to change acronyms. But how do we have a whole scale change to talk about competency, skills, career awareness, you know, building kids who are really ready for the future.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Right, right, amazing, yeah, I mean, we're building a whole child, a whole citizen, and oftentimes, as you were mentioning, the silos tend to not talk to one another. Another fascinating thing when I was watching your TED Talk was you showed two pictures of classroom back in your time when we, you know, in our schooling time, and then you fast forward to nowadays and the similarity were very Stark similar, very similar. How do we get this shift going? How do we get change? I know it takes a long time in education to get the balls rolling. What is, in your experience, been some of like the wins or the aha moments where we can mobilize? Here's some techniques or strategies that we use where we actually saw these shifts starting to happen away from the rows and the memorization in the summative exams to more of a holistic approach to learning.

Speaker 2: 20:55

Yeah, it's a really, really important thing. I think, in my reflection, change is scary. Important thing. I think, in my reflection, change is scary. Change is hard and the way that we do govern education, with deep, big curriculum policy documents for every single grade and every single topic area or subject area, does put limits on how flexible and how integrated teachers can be. So you do see change at the elementary level, in which teachers have control over larger chunks of time and control over more subject areas.

Speaker 2: 21:33

We are seeing some wonderful gains and a key message for us, for teachers, is to know you're not alone. That this is, you know, letting go of some of the stereotypes of the past in which, yes, I sat in rows in every single elementary class. I'm dating myself now because I don't see quite so much of that as was experienced before. But at the same time, often K-8 teachers don't have a science background and often haven't worked outside of a school system. So that lack of comfort or a feeling of identity themselves in how do you ask the kinds of questions that might foster really meaningful science-based or STEM-based programming. It can be tough. If you're not trained in that way, you might not recognize that it's actually easier than you think and letting go of the idea that you need to be the sage on the stage. One of the best things I've seen over the last decade, though, is a real, real, real feeling that that is shifting, that teachers really want to do great things by their students. They're incorporating new pedagogy, they're trying, they're taking risks and getting kids leaning into innovative thinking on human-centered design. We're doing a lot more of that around.

Speaker 2: 22:55

Let's Talk Science as well and getting a better handle on the barriers as to why kids don't stay engaged in the STEM areas, which we can talk to, if you like. We've really, the robust programming that we've been developing over the last many years identifies the tackle, tackles the barriers, really thinks about making it relevant to the youth, regardless of the age and stage they're at, so like what's meaningful to a student who's in grade two versus what's really meaningful and relevant to a student who might be in grade 10 or grade 11. And we've really built our programs in that particular way, and we've taken a real collegial approach. So teachers, who we are here to serve and support, are part of our development cycle, and so we really are hearing like what's worrying you, what's hard to prep, what takes your time. How can you help influence what we do in order to make your job easier? So teaching can often be seen as an isolating profession and we're also here to say you know, ask for help, seek help. It's okay, you don't have to have all the answers.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Right, right, but again, it's breaking some of those norms that, just because you teach the way you were taught, really right, teachers tend to follow the same sequences that they were taught in. And it's yeah, it's that awareness and then saying I could tweak this, or I could tweak that, or I could go across the hall and talk to the teacher and engage in something we could do together. So, yeah, there's lots of opportunities out there for sure. I wanted to just kind of ask you too about Canada 2067, which is an initiative to start shaping. I mean, we have a lot of time left, but how has this initiative been going and could you talk to us a little bit about it and kind of like its direction, where it wants to go to or it hopes to go to?

Speaker 2: 24:54

Yeah, well, I'll clarify that Canada 2067 was really a time-delineated project that we did during the sesquicentennial celebrations in 2017. So it really has kind of closed as a project, but we're using the outcomes all the time. And just to flash back, in 2017, we set out to have a nation building exercise that really engaged all levels, from youth to educators, to policymakers, to industry leaders to help think about the future of STEM education, defining a vision, understanding the key parameters, and we did that. We did public polling. We had hundreds of thousands of responses from people as we were asking for input on what should the future look like. We had five youth summits across the country in which we facilitated discussions with high school students. What would they like to see? How would they like to be moving forward?

Speaker 2: 25:58

We held the only national conference that brought together federal deputy ministers, who had oversight with some aspect of learning and development, and the deputies and ADMs across Canada as part of the Council of Ministers of Education table, and many leaders. We had the Canadian Teachers Federation there as well and many others, so we brought all of that data together. You can still find the youth report, which we produced as a book, and all of the supporting materials. That we did because we also worked with the Global Shapers Network to hold tables with these young professionals who are part of the Global Shapers Network. All of it's available through our website and it all rolled up to some of the key elements that really strong STEM teachers already know, and that is you know, kids want an integrated approach to learning. We need to make it relevant. We need to be thinking better and more about how to connect jobs of the future so young people are aware of the opportunities, because one of the key barriers that exists is a they don't see it relevant for today and what they're learning. And B they don't understand post secondary pathways, regardless of which pathway it is, and the jobs. So that was coming through on everything. And then the need nobody's going to open up the constitution for sure and change. You know who's got responsibility for education, but they need to have more alignment and more communication and, you know, easier adaptability. Again, efficiencies.

Speaker 2: 27:36

In this country we do not have a big population.

Speaker 2: 27:39

We have massive landmass but not a big population. So we need to be thinking differently and more creatively. Some of those core outcomes and the research findings that we had have been peppered and infused and undergird all of our program development importance of youth voice and how smart the kids are and how deeply, deeply committed they are to contributing in meaningful ways. So when we started our journey on climate change education a few years ago and really wanting to change how we were approaching environmental education and climate education, we did another research project in which we hired I think it was about 85 high school students from right across the country to be doing peer ethnographic research to understand, layering into what they were saying in Canada 2067, to understanding and focused more on what are they saying about the kinds of learning experiences they want and need in order to provoke positive, hopeful climate action for themselves. So everything that we've been developing for that whole area, that sector, is totally based on what students, young people, were telling us building on Canada 2067. Amazing.

Speaker 1: 29:04

I'll include that report in our notes for this podcast because I'm going to pull it up and read it a lot more. To kind of bring things in to a close, Bonnie, thanks again. First off, your words are so insightful and your passion comes through very deeply about this STEM and Canada and education and our youth. Just fascinating and I just want to thank you for that. What offerings does let's Talk Science offer out for educators that they can go and get? And I believe most of this is free, right, or all of it is free, Bonnie.

Speaker 2: 29:48

All of it's free and all of it's available in English and French. If you go to the let's Talk Science website and go to the all programming page, there's actually a link on the very top of every web page programming page. There's actually a link on the very top of every web page. It describes the in-person, the online programming that we have for both students and educators, from early childhood to grade 12. We offer, for example, in-person workshops in partnership with our volunteer network. That is just an amazing world-class network of young stem students from university colleges. We also have quite a lot of industry who are getting involved. But our 55 outreach partner sites will go into classrooms, go into library settings, community groups, for free to be tackling that mithran stereotypes and role models. So they are bringing their passion, their studies, to bear, doing hands-on activities. So we do thousands of those programs every year. We also have virtual programming that teachers can tune in and actually have the kids doing activities, like a Zoom session. But we would have hundreds of classrooms that are participating at the same time, from story time for primary classes to STEM club for the junior classes, to curious careers and visionary symposiums and virtual symposiums for high school students. So we have multiple points of entry for every single grade level. Now we have larger scale projects like Tomato Sphere, which might be familiar to some of your listeners. We have Clothing for Climate Travel for Climate Lunar Rover Research Challenge. We've got a brand new project called Mission Innovation. So, taken together, we have so many opportunities.

Speaker 2: 31:41

And then, of course, we have a very deep focus on professional learning and support teachers singularly with a whole suite of programming which I'm super excited about, called the Learning Pathways. Just finished level one, so you can come and do it all and get the certification, or you can do parts of it. You know that fit you and what kind of time teachers have. Again, all free English and French. And one of the newer additions over the last couple of years is this wonderful network of teacher leaders. This year we have a hundred of them. These are classroom educators who have the support of their board or their school to be working with. Let's Talk Science in delivering our professional learning programs.

Speaker 2: 32:32

So, you've got a peer process, a coaching process in place. We have 100 of them now all over the country and it's really amplifying the importance of peer led professional learning and coaching, the need to be developing networks, professional networks and community of practice to help everybody like move forward and make sure that our all of the young people in this country, regardless of where they are, their backgrounds, their financial abilities, that they're all engaged in meaningful, relevant programming that gets them really ready for the future.

Speaker 1: 33:15

Absolutely Amazing. I love your programming, I love your organization, what you guys do. I know it helps teachers, students and you have such a variety. So I encourage you out there, if you're teaching science in elementary and you're kind of not really sure about it and you're going to that textbook, go to let's Talk Science first, and there's support there for you. Bonnie, this has been outstanding. Thanks again. So much, um. I wish you all the the success in the continuation with lex talk science. Um. I think it's an integral part now of of the canada educational landscape. Um, and I'd love to do another chat with you. I mean, we touched on so few things and I know that there's so much more we could talk about. I'd love that.

Speaker 2: 34:05

I'd love that yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:06

Excellent, excellent. Well, I wish you a great day and we'll see each other soon.

Speaker 2: 34:12

And I wish everyone an amazing start to the school year. It's just such a fresh you know a fresh canvas to to be contributing so best to everybody and do any any teacher not just a science teacher, but any teacher use let's talk science as a first stop. We've got definitely got something for you. I'd love to talk to you again, chris excellent thanks, so much thanks.