Includes some resources for finding real-world problems for STEM lessons
STEM can be a good way to spice up your regular, run-of-the-mill lessons. You can consciously connect STEM concepts, thinking processes, and procedures to your daily teaching. Through a sustained and (I hope) collaborative effort, you can use all of your lessons to expose students to new ideas and encourage them to explore, trouble-shoot, and problem-solve. Keep in mind that connecting STEM to all of your lessons is a one-step-at-a-time process. You can’t do it all at once, but here are 6 Starter Tools to help you move along the path.
The new report is not just focused on STEM interest. It also highlights national and state-by-state data on job prospects in the STEM fields. Experts tell me that the data on future STEM jobs have been available for some time, but that the survey information on student interest has not. In any case, the report cites a federal estimate that there will be at least 8.7 million U.S. STEM jobs in 2018, up from 7.4 million today. The report probes differences in STEM interest not just by gender, but also by race and ethnicity.
The report documents how STEM interest has been continually rising in high-school students since 2004, and an astounding 25% of all high-school students currently have an interest in STEM majors and careers. Since the graduating class of 2004, overall interest in STEM majors and careers among high school seniors has increased by over 20%. Arguably the most concerning trend with students interested in STEM is the increasing gender-gap.
ASTRA is a collaboration of over 130 companies, academic institutions, professional societies, trade associations, and foundations. ASTRA's mission is to ensure that there is an adequate, and growing, investment by the Federal government in basic research in the physical sciences, the mathematical and computational sciences, and engineering. To accomplish this goal, ASTRA has developed facts-based advocacy and research programs and publications to educate and inform the general public about the relationship between R&D investments and resulting benefits to the U.S.
Seven articles:
How Successful Careers Begin in School
Integrated Projects = Deeper Learning
Internships Provide On-the-Job Learning
Mastery-Based Assessment Build Accountability
Resources for College & Career Readiness
Research-Based Practices for Engaging Students in
STEM Learning
Infographic: The Value of a STEM Education
What lessons can we learn about genetically engineered organisms from the example of the jabberjay, a fictional bird in the movie "The Hunger Games"? In this lesson, students discuss the definition of genetically modified organisms, learn about the risks and benefits of research on G.M.O.'s, explore the growing do-it-yourself biology movement, and develop proposals seeking to either restrict or permit research into genetically modifying the avian flu virus.
Inquiry—the process of satisfying our curiosity—and nonfiction are closely related. Readers turn to nonfiction for those how-to lessons as well as informational needs. In titles such as Bradley Hague’s Alien Deep: Revealing the Mysterious World at the Bottom of the Ocean (National Geographic, 2012), Sandra Markle’s The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs: A Scientific Mystery (Millbrook, 2012), or Loree Griffin Burns’s The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe (Houghton, 2010), students witness scientists observing, inferring, and formulating new questions as they refine their understanding of the natural world. In effect, these titles provide readers with a window onto inquiry as it is unfolding. What kind of life exists deep within the ocean, why the Panamanian golden frogs are dying, and the cause of honey bee colony collapse disorder are real, perplexing questions requiring creative scientific problem solving.
In case you’re as riveted by the idea of world-saving engineering challenges as I am, you can get an overview of 14 Grand Challenges identified in 2008 at the National Academy of Engineering website. (Be sure to watch the video.) They all seem critically important, but I’ll give you my Top 6. These are the Grand Challenges that I think we can translate seamlessly into the middle school curriculum as “real problems” that students can address through STEM projects.
Boeing has conducted outreach to high school and college students for decades. The company operates a big college intern program aimed primarily at recruiting engineers. But the country as a whole has a problem generating enough workers who do well in math and science. And just about everything at Boeing involves math and science, from tracking the millions of parts that go into each plane, to coming up with complex calculations to design efficient new jets, to creating biofuels to power them.
Welcome to Can*TEEN
CanTEEN Career Exploration encourages tweens and teens to challenge and expand their knowledge of diverse subject matter and related professions and career paths. CanTEEN Career Exploration is more just dreaming about “what should I be when I grow up?” It is filled with great questions and facts to jump start the interests of your students in STEM fields.
One of the most prevalent buzzwords in education today is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). In the United States, many argue that schools are not turning out enough people, especially women, who are equipped with STEM skills. To address the issue, educators at the University of Texas Elementary School decided that STEM was so important that they actually created a position called the STEM teacher. The students go to STEM class just like they go to any special classes such music, art, or PE. But when STEM becomes so important, one begins to wonder what happens with reading or text literacy? Does instruction in literacy skills fall by the wayside in the wake of the growing emphasis on STEM skills? In this post, I share two sets of observations about interesting practices that lead me to think that when STEM skills are taught correctly, they may actually help foster success in reading as well.
Through a partnership between Hillsboro Water and Evergreen Middle School, Phelps is showing students how science, technology, engineering and math are used in real-life projects, like creating a reservoir. The hope is that such lessons will encourage youngsters to pursue a career in a STEM field.
How does STEM work and why is STEM's engineering design approach to learning essential for middle graders? In a new MiddleWeb Resource Roundup, learn how teachers are melding science, technology, engineering and math into problem- and project-based activities that simulate real-world R&D. Included: the challenges of extending STEM to all students and incorporating Arts to create STEAM. Plus lots of links to super lessons and activities, including our own STEM Imagineering blog.
Bloggers add news, lesson plans and other STEM resources to share on this page. These links will be added to a NEW STEM resource page. One comment reads, "I strongly believe that left-brain thinkers are currently being underserved by the kidlit community. We need to honor and nurture their analytical minds by:
–appreciating the value of existing books that meet the needs of these students
–purchasing more books that will appeal to them (even if they don’t appeal to us)
–creating more books that help them understand the world and its possibilities and their place in it.
If we want a strong STEM workforce in the future, we need to meet the needs of curious left-brained thinkers today.
How might we encourage more high-energy, cross-disciplinary thinking among today's students? One place worth checking out is the environmental education classroom, where STEM education is going green. Environmental Education Week(3), coming up April 14-20, focuses this year on the theme of Greening STEM: Taking Technology Outdoors. Hosted by the National Environmental Education Foundation, EE Week encourages real-world learning and problem solving both inside and outside the classroom.
So what does a STEM job look like, anyway? What kinds of jobs are out there for someone who majors in a STEM-related field of study? This may not surprise you: the most popular STEM major and career choice for students is mechanical engineering. According to US News and World Report, more than 20% of STEM students want to design, develop, build, and test various tools and devices. Along with other expected career choices we associate with STEM studies — like aerospace engineer, computer systems analyst, or construction manager — there are plenty of unexpected and exotic STEM job possibilities. Consider, for example, a list of 10 awesome STEM jobs that Mashable recently shared. Among those listed were Legoland amusement park designer, music data journalist, and – for you sports lovers – ESPN statistician. Now we’re talking!
We've just uploaded two new videos to our YouTube channel - one about iPads being used at Lincoln High School and one about Chromebooks being used at Memorial Middle School - which highlight the power of learning. You'll see just a couple of the dozens of classrooms using technology provided either through the budget process or as the result of grants. You can hear teachers rave about the possibilities technology has opened up for mastery learning, listen to students express happiness for the access to such devices in school, and experience the student engagement brought to life through innovative uses of these tools.
"Furthering STEM education is one of the most important priorities we should have as a nation."
Reynolds is part of the movement to improve STEM education efforts – a goal that has found its way into the new nationwide education standards known as the common core. But even though these efforts could improve America's performance, the nation's sheer size and diversity makes it impossible to create an educational system that surpasses the highest achieving countries. "We don't have enough resources in this country to make every school spotless. We have students who can compete with anyone in the world, but we also have students who struggle just to learn English and math," said James Brown, executive director of the STEM Education Coalition, which works with educators, business leaders and policy makers to promote science and math initiatives nationally.
Has the Internet changed the way students conduct research? Yes, and not always for the better, reports to a study released last week by the Pew Research Center, "How Teens Do Research in the Digital World." According to a survey of more than 2,000 middle and high school teachers, "research" for today's students means "Googling," and as a result, doing research "has shifted from a relatively slow process of intellectual curiosity and discovery to a fast-paced, short-term exercise aimed at locating just enough information to complete an assignment."