Bok Teaching Certificate

Sponsored Program

STEM Ideas and Activities for the Classroom (Part 2 of 2)

May 09, 2013 by Michelle Manno

Tami Bowlden has worked in education for 17 years. Based in Idaho, she has been a classroom teacher (5th-8th grades), and an Educational Technology specialist, has worked in professional development and curriculum design, and currently works for Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). She holds an endorsement in Gifted and Talented education and a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction. She is passionate about helping teachers to meet students where they are and to plan creative, engaging, differentiated lessons and activities for students that challenge them and give them choices about their own learning. She blogs and shares ideas and materials at For the Teachers, a Teach 100 blog.

Check out Part 1 of Tami's awesome post on making STEM Education fun, Putting Physics to Work in the Classroom!

Recently, the Next Generation Science Standards were released. These standards were developed by 26 states and several national scientific organizations to increase student knowledge and interest in the STEM areas, in light of increasing need in these areas in the future workforce. The new standards, like the Common Core State Standards for math and language, focus on getting students to a deeper level of understanding, not just memorization and recall.

Here are some ideas to take advantage of the opportunities STEM subjects give us to excite and engage our students. Our students will be far more likely to learn and remember the skills and concepts if we actively involve them in their learning, make connections across subjects and to their real lives, and give them opportunities to explore, create, discover and wonder.

Science: Exploring the World around Us

Have you ever tried to take a 2-year-old on a walk? How far did you get before the child wanted to stop and look at something?

Young children are naturally curious. Every rock, every stick, every ladybug and worm on the ground is something to stop, look at, touch and discover.

As teachers, we should be seeking out opportunities for children from kindergarten to high school to further develop that sense of wonder and curiosity. Science is all about exploration and experimentation. As often as possible, students should have the chance to learn from doing rather than from textbooks.

Technology: Connecting to the World

Technology is an ever-increasing part of our daily lives. Many of our students walk into school these days with more technology in their pockets than NASA had when they put a man on the moon, or so I’ve heard.

We can use current technology to expand students learning by connecting them with information, resources and people they might not otherwise have access to. Technology makes it much easier to differentiate, to provide students with reading materials and activities at their level. Instead of seeing students sitting quietly in rows, a classroom full of learning these days is more likely to have a group of students clustered around some computers or with tablets in their hands, sharing information and learning from each other.

Student blogging is increasingly popular for good reason. Blogging provides frequent opportunities for students to write and reflect on their learning. Instead of writing for an audience of one – the teacher – the students’ words can be read by other students, in their class and school, by their parents, by others all over the world. Student engagement and accountability naturally go up when they know their work will be seen.

We can only begin to imagine what kinds of technology will be available to our students by the time they’re adults, so in addition to teaching students how to use technology, we need to specifically teach them how to use technology safely.

  • What students post online becomes part of their digital footprint forever – Students need to learn to comment and post with courtesy and thoughtfulness.

  • Not everything they read and see online is true – Student need to learn how to determine if a source is valid and reliable.

  • Personal information posted online can make a student vulnerable – Students need to learn what is and isn’t safe to make public.

Engineering: The Way We Build, Design and Develop

The United States needs a strong workforce of engineers in order to be globally competitive, but of the four STEM areas, engineering is the most often neglected in our schools.

Engineering includes a wide range of areas such as structural (designing and building things like towers and bridges), software (coding and development of apps and programs), and robotics as well as civic (designing the layout of streets and towns), aerospace, genetic, agricultural and fire prevention.

In addition to teaching skills related to engineering in our classes, these topics provide some great opportunities for supplemental activities, things that students can work on at a spare table after completing other classwork.

Many activities related to engineering are, quite simply, a lot of fun.

  • Use marshmallows and dry spaghetti to build three-dimensional figures: cubes, triangular prisms, dodecahedrons, icosahedrons, etc.

  • Have a group of students create a structure out of blocks; then have another group try to recreate an identical structure

  • Build an igloo (a half sphere) or a full sphere out of sugar cubes

  • Using basic robotics kits (found in the toy section at many stores), challenge students to use the pieces to accomplish a particular task, such as turning the pages in a book

  • Design and create paper airplanes that are able to fly across the room or past a certain point down the hallway, or that can do tricks, such as circling back or doing a loopty-loop

Math: Seeing the Patterns that Shape Daily Life

Math is considered core content for a reason: it surrounds us every day. Every time we use a computer, get change at the grocery store, measure ingredients to make cookies or play a song on the piano, math is involved.

In our classrooms, we tend to teach math skills in isolation; students practice addition facts on one worksheet and subtraction facts on another. We should be looking for opportunities for students to practice math skills in a realistic context so that students can see how the skills connect to each other and how they are used in the real world.

For example, a local fifth grade planned and had built an outdoor stage area on their school campus: they determined how much wood was needed, they researched the costs, and they helped their teacher complete a grant that paid for the project. They used a wide variety of math skills as part of this process, and ended up with a structure they are proud to show off.

Other possibilities:

  • Have students calculate the costs:

      • For a field trip or picnic
      To select a snack food vendor for the school store
      To plan and fundraise for a graduation party

  • Quadruple the ingredients to make a batch of no-bake cookies in class

  • Measure the distance a student can jump, the length of a wall, the distance across the playground.

  • Measure and compare the radius of various round objects to the circumference.

  • Calculate player statistics for a favorite sport. In baseball, explore the speed of the ball, the arc of the swing and what makes a difference between a bunt and a home run.

  • Play chess, checkers or any of the multitude of other games that require strategic thinking and other math-related skills

Take advantage of the opportunities STEM subjects give us to excite and engage our students. Our students will be far more likely to learn and remember the skills and concepts if we actively involve them in their learning, make connections across subjects and to their real lives and if we give them opportunities to explore, create, discover and wonder.

Check out Part 1 of Tami's awesome post on making STEM Education fun, Putting Physics to Work in the Classroom!

Sign up for Teach.com’s monthly newsletter to receive the latest in education news and information about becoming a teacher, including certification, teaching programs and more!