By connecting high-school students to robotics through play, Laila Berchane hopes to change the face of STEM education in Morocco.
How do children learn the laws of physics? A game of Jenga with her young nephew inspired Laila Berchane to find out. Jenga, a board game in which players take turns removing one block from a 54-block tower and placing it on top, results in a progressively higher and more unstable structure. The winner survives long enough to see the other player topple the tower. “As an adult, you understand the principles of physics, and you know that some blocks should not be touched, or the tower will fall,” says Berchane. Her nephew kept choosing the wrong blocks.
An industrial engineer, Berchane knows how tricky it can be to learn physics. She used Jenga to explain the concept of the centre of gravity to her nephew and saw that he was quick to learn. If you make it fun, she says, it really opens up opportunities for children to engage.
In 2015, Berchane and her sister Imane launched Robots & More, an organisation that introduces robotics to young students through play. The company consults with schools on EdTech solutions and supplies them with products, such as the LEGO Education and Makeblock programmes. It has a robotics centre based in Casablanca, Morocco, and franchises under the Play & Code Academy brand, which creates lesson plans incorporating LEGO bricks and other materials.
The lessons incorporate activities that provide children with a playful introduction to STEM. One such activity is building a workout tracker using LEGO bricks, which can be used in a series of experiments investigating the relationships between different types of energy and object acceleration. Students can connect their trackers to a robot that lifts weights or a vehicle that drives through an obstacle course, or they can wear it while walking or jumping.
With each experiment, students learn to plot, analyse and interpret data; they gain a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships, statistics, probability distributions and measurement errors. “Students learn communication skills, how to work as a team, and they develop creativity and problem-solving skills,” says Berchane. “It’s a full learning experience.”
Going rural
Initially, the programmes were aimed at private schools that had the resources to participate, but by 2018, Berchane and her sister had raised enough funds to establish LOOP for Science & Technology, an NGO that organises robotics clubs and trains teachers to run extracurricular robotics programmes in public schools in rural and underprivileged communities across Morocco. LOOP started out in five schools; Berchane expects it to reach more than 170 by the end of 2022.
Education is not always valued in rural Morocco, says Berchane. Girls, in particular, are less likely to receive an education, let alone be encouraged to pursue a career in STEM. “Parents do not consider it an activity for their daughters,” she says.
Lower registration fees and female role models have assisted Berchane in promoting LOOP’s programmes for girls. One such programme, Empowering Girls in Rural Areas through STEM, allowed the LOOP team to work closely with the Ministry of Education in Morocco to create an inclusive learning environment for all students. Through the programme, LOOP has been able to access every region of Morocco, achieving a participation rate of about 54% of girls. Teachers played a crucial role in this process, says Berchane, because they are highly respected in small communities and frequently serve as a second family for the most vulnerable children.
In early 2022, a teacher at a girls school in Tasguint, a small village in the Taroudant region of Morocco, led a team of 10 to 12-year-old girls in the FIRST LEGO League in Morocco, an international competition where students engage in research, problem-solving, coding and engineering to build and program LEGO-based robots. “These girls live in difficult situations,” says Berchane. “It’s possible that they don’t have Internet access. They may not even have running water in their homes.”
The girls won all of their tournaments and advanced to the finals in Egypt, where they finished in third place. “It was their first trip outside their town,” says Berchane. “They saw a city for the first time. It was all new to them.”
When the girls returned home, their village celebrated their success.
“It changed people’s perceptions of what women can do,” says Berchane.
A rewarding career
Berchane has been pleased to see the students’ and teachers’ responses to the programmes. Teachers have seen a reduction in dropouts; even the most disadvantaged students participate in activities and rediscover the joy of going to school. “It changes their lives,” says Berchane. “It changes the way they look at their future.”
She observes that students who have now gone on to university are more confident in science and technology than their peers.
When I was at school, I didn’t even know what engineering was,” says Berchane. “I come from a small town in Morocco where we did not have extracurricular activities at all. If only I could have learnt STEM this way.”
Despite the success, raising funds is a constant challenge – only about 10% of donors are local, the rest are international corporations. “We find it difficult to explain the value and cost [to local organisations],” says Berchane. “We need to persuade them that this is a long-term investment.”
The difficulties in raising funds have not deterred Berchane and her sister. “It’s a real plus to have your sister as your partner. She is someone who I can trust unconditionally,” says Berchane. “We often lift each other up. Whenever one of us is down, the other takes the lead. It keeps us moving, and has strengthened our relationship.”
Berchane’s parents, who were once sceptical that the sisters would succeed as a businesswomen, are among their most enthusiastic volunteers. “Stepping into intrapreneurship was difficult, because my parents weren’t very supportive,” Berchane says. “They thought it was too risky for a girl. So, I had to go for it, even without their approval.”
The effort has been well worth it, she says. “When you see the faces of happy kids, you forget all problems.”
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Story by Manuela Callari