Resources and Downloads for STEM

Getting Started With STEM

• STEM Is Jambalaya: Internalize this food metaphor to shift into a STEM mindset. (Edutopia, 2014)
• How to Get Your School Ready for STEM This Year: Discover a few straightforward tips for preparing your school to launch STEM learning that don’t require access to large amounts of funding. (KQED's MindShift, 2013)
• 10 Innovative Ways to Bring STEM to Schools: Explore ideas for bringing STEM learning into schools, including teacher research and development teams, inviting guest scientists, organizing clubs, and convening parent focus groups. (KQED’s MindShift 2014)

Strategies for Engaging Students in STEM Learning

• How to Design Right-Sized Challenges: Consider takeaways from an engineering design competition for how to conceptualize design challenges as relevant to real life, challenging, and achievable for diverse learners. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Ownership and Agency Will Propel STEM Learning: Review evidence that the best way forward in STEM learning is by letting students lead. (Edutopia, 2014)
• STEM and Writing: See how inviting guest speakers from STEM fields to the classroom can inspire student imaginations. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Using Football Science to Tackle STEM Education: Learn how to use topics that interest students to get across potentially challenging or intimidating STEM concepts. (Edutopia, 2013)
• Learning the Physics of Skateboarding Engages Kids in Science: Watch a video about an educator known as "Dr. Skateboard," and see how he teaches students about speed, velocity, and momentum at the local skate park. (Edutopia, 2014)
• STEMbite: An Experiment in Teaching With Google Glass: Watch first-person video lessons –- including a broadcast from one teacher’s kitchen exploring crazy science found in the refrigerator –- and see how video lessons can motivate and inspire students in STEM. (Edutopia, 2013)
• Engaging Students in the STEM Classroom Through Making: Find out how to use the maker movement to engage STEM students in new ways. (Edutopia, 2012)

STEM Projects, Lessons, and Models

• The High Hopes Project: Read about students in Nevada and how they designed payloads for high-altitude balloons as part of an integrated inquiry and problem-based global STEM project. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Reinventing the Science Fair With Portal 2 Puzzle Maker: Find out how one STEM teacher uses Portal 2 Puzzle Maker to engage students in designing and demonstrating math and science problems through game design. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Students Map Real-World Issues With (Free) Geospatial Tools: Discover how some schools are using geographical information system software to help students investigate local and world problems. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Emphasize Real Problems to Boost STEM Learning: Explore a set of resources and ideas called PBL Projects to find ways to create student-driven learning experiences within the context of authentic STEM problems and challenges. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Videos and Resources for Making STEM Come Alive: Find examples of projects for bringing STEM learning into middle and high school classrooms. (Teaching Channel, 2014)
• How to Energize a Weak STEM Lesson: Find tips for educators on how to find good sources for STEM lessons, criteria you can use to evaluate their quality, and tips on adapting STEM lessons for your own use. (MiddleWeb, 2015)

Pulling Underrepresented Youth Into STEM

• Quick, Draw a Scientist: Learn how to address scientist stereotypes in the minds of students. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Why Students Leave STEM: Discover why some students choose to leave STEM, and learn how strategies like mentors and role models can help. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Girls Against the World, Scientifically Speaking: Dig into questions and explore suggestions for how STEM education can be made more relevant for girls. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Kinesthetic Learning: Moving Toward a New Model for Education: Find out how one afterschool program is pairing kinesthetic learning and mathematics to break through barriers of self-image and perceived limitations. (Edutopia, 2014)
• 5 Ways to Get Girls Into STEM: Explore strategies to help capture young girls’ interest in STEM subjects and career paths. (Edutopia, 2013)
• Five-Minute Film Festival: 8 Videos to Encourage Girls in STEM: Watch a video playlist to ignite your imagination about what girls can do in science, technology, engineering, and math. Be sure to take a look at the tip sheets and articles at the bottom of the page. (Edutopia, 2014)

STEM Beyond School Walls

• Informal Learning: From STEM Clubs to Careers in Science: Discover how informal-learning experiences can help draw students into STEM subjects. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Khan Academy's Discovery Lab: Summer Camp Where STEM Meets PBL: Learn about STEM activities at one summer camp: experiences reverse-engineering household objects, statistics and economics simulations, hands-on mathematics, robotics, and computer science. (Edutopia, 2012)
• Learning STEM Through Agriculture on a Nebraska Farm: Watch a video that shows how members of the Loseke family use STEM skills and knowledge every day to run their ranching business. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Girls Launch Their Own High-Interest STEM Project -- Into Space: Check out a story about several middle school girls who took on an ambitious summer project. (Edutopia, 2015)
• How Making Robots Captivates Kids' Imaginations: Watch a video about two high school seniors who began mentoring younger robotics teams to teach STEM skills and save their school’s robotics program. (Edutopia, 2014)

Downloads and Examples From Schools That Work

Edutopia's flagship series highlights practices and case studies from K-12 schools and districts that are improving the way students learn. Below, find downloads used by practitioners at a featured school, and dive into real-world examples of STEM learning.

STEM Connection: From Classroom to Workplace

At Mc2STEM High School, integrated project-based learning and real-world internship experiences build the crucial link between academic achievement and future economic success. See how this school designs rigorous projects that blend STEM with other core subjects, find information about research-based practices for STEM learning, check out an infographic on why STEM education matters, and explore a few of the school downloads below.

• Bridges Project Design Document: Download a PDF document that describes how students learn about the math and engineering concepts necessary to construct bridges and explore the symbolic meaning of bridges in literature, history, and social studies.
• Communications Project Design Document: Download a PDF document that describes how students address learning goals across multiple subjects through design and construction of a sound system and the writing of original music.
• Rockets and Robots Project Design Document: Download a PDF document that describes how students build robots and construct rockets to complete a variety of space-inspired missions and reach reach learning goals in various content areas.
• Blank Project Design Document: Download a blank PDF template used to design and plan capstone projects at Mc2STEM.
• Sample Fab Lab Projects: Download a PDF document with photos of several projects that were done in the Mc2STEM Fab Lab.