The Voice of Canada News, July 22, 2019

MPP Anand hosted the very first STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) workshop on Sunday, Jul 21 at Frank Mckechnie Community Centre from 11am to 1pm. Designed to introduce young children to some of the basic principles of STEM in an innovative way, the
workshop gave our young guests the opportunity to code robots to move, and build launchers and landers with every day objects like ice-cream sticks and Styrofoam cups. Some of the scientific principles we explored included computational thinking, algorithms, kinetic energy, and air resistance. Children as young as three years old joined in the fun as families spent an educational and eventful Sunday afternoon in Mississauga-Malton, facilitated by Chandhu Andhe and his team from STEM1. The Minister of Education also stopped by and walked through the various activities. Addressing the crowd, the Minister stressed the importance of STEM as foundational learning for this generation as recent research puts skills such as coding at the forefront of future careers. An engineer himself, MPP Anand said, “STEM is the future. It’s not just for those who want to be doctors or engineers. If you want to be an artist or work in the media or in banking etc., you will find STEM enhancing your career, your passion. That’s the way the world is heading and the sooner we understand that as parents and the sooner we introduce STEM to our kids, the better.” Given the success of the event, MPP Anand will definitely make this an annual event. He would like to thank the staff, volunteers, STEM1 and all the attendees for making the first edition a success. For more information about other events, please contact our community office at 905-696-0367 or deepak.anandco@pc.ola.org. The office is open from 10am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and is located at 7895 Tranmere Drive, Unit 20, Mississauga.