This week, the subject of our Rising Resources blog is STEM-Works. It’s a little bit of a different concept than we’re using to blogging about in this series because it offers more benefits on the information side of things than it necessarily does to facilitate active learning on simplify things for teachers. STEM-Works is a website that anybody can find valuable—not just educators. Anyone who has a passion for STEM education can use STEM-Works to find resources to learn more about STEM teaching approaches, STEM careers, and how to get children more interested in potential career fields within this area. Keep reading to learn more about STEM-Works!
One of the biggest challenges facing educators today is that students aren’t always interested in learning about STEM subjects or developing STEM skills. For whatever reason, not every child is interested in productive technology or coding or solar energy. Or, they just don’t know they are interested in it. Two of the top reasons more students don’t go on to pursue a future in STEM is because they lost interest from an early age or they do not think they have the aptitude to succeed. Well, that’s not all that accurate and STEM-Works has made it easy for teachers to find resources they can use to try to curb this potential issue.
So many new jobs are being created in the STEM fields and they truly focus on every letter in the acronym. There isn’t an overabundance of technology jobs, for example, as plenty of opportunities are being created in science, engineering, and math. On the STEM-Works homepage, users can find resources broken down into three main categories: Articles, Activities, and Cool Jobs. The content in these sections is always changing and, right now, the featured article is all about dolphins, the featured activity is making asteroids you can eat, and the featured job is becoming an astrophysicist—all of which, of course, have great STEM connections!
At the top of the STEM-Works site, there is a row of yellow icons that each represent a different area of STEM. You’ll notice them pretty much as soon as you land on their page. They include a magnifying glass, a cloud with a lightning bolt, a stethoscope, the Sun, and more. You might have guessed it already, but these various icons each represent content areas for students and teachers to explore. The topics are, of course, all STEM-related and include crime scene investigation, extreme weather, medical innovations, robotics, space, the animal kingdom, under the sea, video games, and wind energy—something for kids with all sorts of interests!
Clicking on each topic leads users to articles, activities, and more within various subcategories. Educators can use content on STEM-Works for at-home reading assignments or use the content on the site to spark in-class discussions on a number of important topics. The best part is that, since there is so much content posted on the site, there is a very good chance that teachers would be able to find something that is relevant to what’s currently being covered in class. Users can access this material without creating an account, but accounts can quickly be created by clicking on the ‘Join Now’ button on the top of the page.
As for the activities, there are a lot to choose from within the different sections of the site. Many of them provide teachers with all the info they need to know, including the grade levels the project is appropriate for, how long it will take to complete, the standards that are addressed, the materials that students will need, and any background knowledge that would be helpful! Some of them are actually very fleshed out and make it easy for teachers and students to get started and understand what it is they are trying to accomplish.
STEM-Works is an easy-to-navigate platform that teachers can use to introduce kids to exciting STEM topics while making sure they don’t get overwhelmed too quickly. If you’d like to learn more about STEM-Works, we'd definitely recommend exploring some of the content on their site. And, after you’ve checked out STEM-Works, be sure to head over to our store, where you’ll find all sorts of the latest STEM tools from robotics and coding to 3D printing and virtual reality. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, too!