Real-world STEM activities that teachers can use now!
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that we need more problem-solvers with STEM skills in the world. People like:
- Epidemiologists who can educate us about diseases
- Engineers who can build cold-storage solutions
- Mathematicians who can create predictive disease models
- Database experts who can help us track and understand statistics
It’s these types of real-world examples that engage learners and help educators answer the age-old question: When are we ever going to use this?! Here at The Tech Interactive, creating those real-world scenarios is kind of our jam, and a central part of our Design Challenge Learning pedagogy.
That’s why we’ve pulled together a month-by-month calendar of fun, NGSS-aligned design challenges, so you can hook your learners with relevant, hands-on activities all STEMester long!
September 📙
Real-world connections: Hispanic Heritage Month and National Wilderness Month. Remember that there are endless ways to make real-world connections, from current events to holidays to historic events. What will resonate most with your learners?
- Hispanic Heritage Month: You can’t be what you can’t see, which is why these Scientist Stories are so important. We highlight four scientists with diverse backgrounds, who tell stories about what inspired them to study STEM. For Hispanic Heritage month, we recommend showing the videos of Dr. Javier Ceja-Navarro, who studies the gut microbiome of the passalid beetle to find important clues about how we can manufacture biofuels more efficiently. Grades 6–12
- National Wildlife Month: Animals cross busy roads to find food, have babies, and find new safe places to live, so when they can’t cross, their survival can be threatened. What can your students do to solve this problem during National Wildlife Month? In our Caution! Wildlife Crossing design challenge, they’ll use their creativity and imagination to build a passageway for their favorite animal. Grades 1–5
October 🎃
Real-world connections: Halloween, the Great California Shakeout, and Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The beauty of STEM is that it covers so many interesting topics!
- All month: Students in Grades 4–6 are often getting their first device, which means Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October is a great time to teach them about cybersecurity. We put together a host of activities to help them break down everything from the secret codes that inspired password technology to how a network actually functions (what is a packet, anyway?) Designed in partnership with Discovery Education, these lessons have accompanying videos and a 360-degree tour of The Tech Interactive’s Cyber Detectives exhibit. Grades 4–6
- October 21: If you’re a California educator, earthquake preparedness is always relevant, but never more so than on October 21, the Great California Shakeout! Connect with the organization to get ideas on how to participate, or check out our Engineering for Earthquakes lesson. Your learners will use materials from around their classroom or home to build an earthquake-safe structure. They’ll have fun perfecting their creation and then trying to knock it down! Grades 3–5
- October 31: We love Halloween, which is why we put together this fun guide to six different Halloween activities. Maybe your learners want to get artsy and make some spooky thaumatropes. Or, an inflatable ghost might be more up their alley! Either way, you can make Halloween a great jumping off point for some frightfully fun STEM learning. Grades 1–5
November 🍁
Real-world connections: National STEM/STEAM Day, Global Entrepreneurship Week and Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. This is the month to be extra thankful for STEM!
- November 8: It’s the most wonderful time of the year: National STEM/STEAM Day! We couldn’t possibly choose just one of our activities for this momentous occasion, so we’ll share BOTH our activity sites: The Tech Interactive at Home and Educator Resources. Grades 1–12
- November 13–21: This week is dedicated to raising awareness about hunger and homelessness. What do these topics have to do with STEM? It turns out, a lot. Show your students this virtual field trip video, which features San Jose nonprofit Destination Home. This amazing organization figured out how to use data to ensure that their unhoused community was receiving the right resources at the right time. The segment is an excellent example of how we can use STEM tools to solve humanitarian crises. Grades 6–12
- November 14–20: Are your learners fans of the show “Shark Tank”? Do they dream of owning their own business or sharing a phenomenal idea with the world? If so, introduce them to Global Entrepreneurship Week and our Emerging Technologies lesson, which presents four new technologies to your learners, who will then create a pitch to convince their community to adopt it. Grades 7–12
December ⛄
Real-world connections: National Computer Science Education Week and National Cupcake Day. Yes, National Cupcake Day is real, and it’s spectacular!
- December 6–12: We all know computer science is important, but…don’t you have to be an expert to teach it? Nope! It turns out that the building blocks of computer science start with computational thinking, which is really just a way of breaking down problems into their parts. Even better — you don’t need a computer! For #CSEdWeek, we’ve put together a blog post of all our computational thinking activities so you can decide which one will work best for your learners. All grades
- December 15: Cupcake Day is perhaps our second favorite day after National STEM/STEAM Day (and if the cupcakes are red velvet? Sorry, STEM Day. Don’t tell the other science centers). Anyway, Cupcake Delivery is a great way to wrap up the semester. It involves wind-powered engineering, fun and food, so it’s a win-win! Of course, you can always use a cupcake substitute — we had fun 3D printing ours! All grades
Congratulations — you made it through the semester! Be sure to check out our spring semester plan, too.
