STEM is a major buzz-word in the world of education: it’s so hot right now! And there is good reason for it. Encouraging science, technology, engineering, and math among kids is crucial to their development. STEM skills are the key ones that 21st century kids need to thrive as they grow up — to be leaders, experimenters, and creators.
STEM is an interdisciplinary approach to learning that provides hands-on experiences for children. It engages children with computational thinking, problem solving, and creative skills, and ultimately connect them with daily life.
Kids who have early exposure STEM unplugged activities to better at math, science, and coding as they grow up.
What you can do as a parent
Parents, teachers, family, and friends can encourage kids’ STEM capacity well before they ever go to school — and even before they learn how to read or use a computer.
Especially if you focus on building on thinking skills and STEM mindsets, rather than doing complicated experiments or lesson plans, you can make STEM an important part of everyday life. There are 3 areas of crticial, systematic, creative thinking that you can develop in your children: Design Thinking, Systems Thinking, and Computational Thinking.
Want to know more about the power of STEM and the value of it for kids’ development? Read more at these links, and at our blog.
Iridescent is a non-profit educational project to train mentors, teachers, and kids for STEM education.
Curiosity Machine, an outgrowth of Iridescent, has lots of design and engineering challenges for older kids to do with their parents and teachers, to teach STEM lessons.
BurkeMobile is a University of Washington project that takes STEM education on the road to kids and parents — with hands-on activities and training.
The Harvard Family Research Project has an article from Tara Chlovski, the founder of Iridescent, Engaging Families in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Project-Based Learning, that overviews the research outcomes that result from STEM education of parents, teachers, and other mentors.