A science partnership has boosted signature learning at CedarBridge Academy under the island’s ongoing reforms to public education.

The Bermuda Zoological Society has signed a memorandum of understanding with Bermuda’s public school system after working with CedarBridge since last September to build a curriculum in Stem, or science, technology, engineering and maths.

BZS teachers have worked several days weekly in the Devonshire school’s classrooms as well as out in the field with students.

Pupils experienced science first-hand alongside experts at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo and BZS.

Akinyi Apopa, chairwoman of the BZS education committee and a public school teacher, said the collaboration fitted with the society’s mission of “inspiring appreciation and care of island environments”.

The BZS said it had hired a new educator and a curriculum designer to ensure the highest quality in both the Stem educational materials being developed and their delivery.

Its education department has also kept busy with professional development over the past three years.

Lisa DeSilva of the Education Reform Unit said BZS had been “right there with us during Bermuda's education reform journey, and have been an invaluable ally and co-contributor to the effort to transform schooling and learning for our students”.

The BZS was the first outside partner to join signature schooling at CedarBridge Academy, co-delivering a key module of the Stem signature for S1 students in semester one and two under ongoing school reforms to create several signature schools.

Ms DeSilva said that as school reforms continued, early efforts of partners such as BZS would prove to be “critical to the overall success of the reform”.

Students learnt how to think and act like a scientist and engineer, developing critical thinking skills for research, designing investigations, coming up with methods to collect and analyse data, and forming conclusions.

Investigations included boat design, Bermuda's sea turtles, and a comparative study of the island's marine habitats.

Students used drones for field research and explored machine learning and AI, teaching computers to recognise objects.

Sarah Holmes, a BZS educator, said seeing students weekly made for “a unique learning opportunity that allows students to explore a more hands-on approach and gives them more autonomy in their learning both in and out of the classroom".

With a formal MOU signed, BZS said it was looking forward to working with other organisations that had partnered with signature learning reforms.