STEM Day

Challenge
Did you know, STEM Day falls on November 8? There’s no way around it: children are significantly better off with strong science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics skills. That’s why STEM education programs are so important. It’s undebatable that these subjects push society forward, and these programs help to find fun and engaging ways to teach them to students, which is all worth commemorating. So, on November 8, we celebrated STEM Day! How can you celebrate? By taking part in the STEM challenge on this day or any other day this month. This month's STEM challege is a little different. The challenge is to build and make a model to brainstorm and answer, "What does STEM mean to you?" Students can build a model to represent what they think STEM means or how they see it using various materials.

There are no criteria or contstaints to this challenge. It is an open-ended, metaphoric prompt to let students explore and think critically about the solution.

Materials

• any items needed or available

​Hints and Tips for Success

1. Allow students planning and discussion time by having them brainstorm their ideas. 
2. After brainstorming, allow student groups to plan their design by drawing it out and labeling their materials being used. 
3. For differentiation, allow students to share their ideas with each other on how they are relating STEM to their creations to spark students' thinking, allow students to write their answers to the question first, share a model you would build to portray the question, etc.
4. Connect to ELA by having students present their models to their peers and then write their summarized answers. The hands-on activity sparks creativity and deeper thinking prior to writing. 

By: Clay Nolan, CA BOCES Learning Resources