STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. This seems to be all the rage nowadays with education. Teachers are increasingly encouraged to find ways to implement STEM into their teaching. Parents like it when their students engage in hands-on exploration. Students have a blast with STEM. When administrators come to observe teachers, it’s seems to be preferred if the teacher is doing some sort of STEM lesson. Sure, the lessons are a little more fluid and the students might be a little less structured, but there is high student engagement and, honestly, the kids love having time to discover and design things themselves.
I don’t know about you, but trying to figure out STEM activities sometimes makes me want to pull out my hair. I don’t know where to start and searching the vast internet for ideas can be tiring. I appreciate when there is a STEM activity already designed and a plan laid out for me. This month’s website feature is just that! It’s a place for ideas of how to implement STEM into the school classroom or the homeschool classroom.
STEM-works advertises itself as “a resource for teachers, mentors, parents, STEM professionals, volunteers, and everyone passionate about getting children eager to learn about science, technology, engineering, and math”. I can get behind that!
The website is full of articles about STEM-related subjects that might interest students, such as engineering discoveries or extreme weather investigations. These articles work as a hook for the STEM activities. For example, if you want the students to engage in a STEM activity about extreme weather, reading an article about “The Top 10 Deadliest Natural Disasters in History would be an engaging article to get students thinking.
There are activities that go along with the articles, to get students using their hands. After clicking on the “Activities” link, it will bring you to a menu bar. The menu bar is also along the side of the website. There are many different activities to choose, from a variety of topics. For instance, there is”Crime Scene Investigation”. Under this tab, there are several activities. Some of the activities include learning to annolie handwriting, nand navigating a crime lab. Under the Extreme Weather” tab, there are lessons on how to make a volcano, build an earthquake-proof structure, and make a cloud!
There is also a link called “Cool Jobs” that gives examples of careers that use STEM on a daily basis. You can read about them and share the information with your students.
It is important to note that a lot of these activities are geared towards older students, but can be adapted to fit the needs of younger students.
I appreciate that this website is easy to navigate and also has a plethora of great STEM ideas. I can already imagine doing several of the activities with students. Which activities are you most excited about implementing in your classroom? Have you found other good STEM online resources?
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I am going to be starting student teaching this spring. I am in the process of building up a collection of manipulatives, and I absolutely love STEM. These would be perfect for my future classroom, I would use them in my science center so that my students could build physical models related to the topic/unit we are exploring. They could also use the Zoob Builderz during free play to create anything they want. Another idea I have is to offer a weekly STEM challenge and this set would be a useful tool to help them solve the given problem.
I would use the Zoob Builderz set in my Maker Space. The kids could use them to build and explore while using their imagination in a fun way! My kids love the activities we have now that use newspaper, aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, and duct tape, so I know they would LOVE to have these manipulatives to explore new options. This set looks to be very engaging and fun. Thank you.