Elementary teachers work so hard to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators. It’s even harder work if you live in a STEM desert with few local resources that your students can access. To help, I’ve gathered some ideas and online resources that can connect your students with STEM wherever they live. Here we go!
Real-World Connections 🌍:
Students get excited about STEM when they can see its relevance to the world as they understand it. As a first step, you can check out Wonderopolis for real-world phenomena that match your learning objectives. When you’re ready to dive in more, you could try giving your students a local problem to solve--an invasive species threatening a local waterway or salt from roads in the winter causing soil issues on farms. Science is all about solving messy, complicated problems! Let your students get caught up in creating solutions.
Cool STEM Careers 🌟:
There’s so much value in letting students see the human side of STEM careers. This online card set from Letters to a Pre-Scientist highlights a ton of fascinating roles that students may never have heard of. If you’re into pen-pals, check out the rest of the site; the group’s goal is to match students with scientists via snail-mail. It’s a great concept that lets students discover the real people who make science happen.
Diversity in STEM 🌐:
Students get excited when they can picture themselves in the world of STEM. When you’re starting a new topic, you can pair a phenomenon with an example of someone who studies that topic. On the I am a Scientist page, you can find great examples of diverse scientists, but you’ll also find hobbies and activities that scientists share with students in your classroom! This collection of diverse scientists is available as a downloadable poster set, or you can request a free professionally printed set (these are funded by donation, so the quantity is limited).
If you’re looking specifically for women or girls to highlight, the IF/THEN Collection has an amazing collection of stories, photos, and videos all cataloged for any teacher to use for educational purposes.
Looking for an ELA connection to diversity in STEM? The National Inventors Hall of Fame has a curated list of books for young people that highlight Black inventors at this page, which could be a great tie-in to Black History Month in a few days. This blog post also has a list of children’s STEM books (with affiliate links – not mine) that includes one about Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African American woman astronaut. I haven’t had a chance to check these out, so if you read one of these, let me know what you think about it!
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