STEM News RSS

In 2023, Storytime STEM-packs™ was chosen by the Iowa Governor's STEM Advisory Council for the third time to become a STEM program provider for the Iowa STEM Scale-Up Program. In recognition of how effective and engaging Storytime STEM-packs are for STEM and computer science learning, the program was chosen from many applicants to be one of only thirteen STEM providers awarded this distinction in Iowa for 2023-24.  The Iowa STEM Council made a total of 165 Storytime STEM-pack awards, providing a customized collection of Storytime STEM-packs™ specifically targeting PK-2 mathematics, science, engineering design, and computer science concepts. Each award packet contained one...

Recently, Storytime STEM Collaborative Teacher Amanda Loughner piloted our newest Storytime STEM-pack The Snail and the Whale with her first-grade classroom. This Storytime STEM-pack focuses on the STEM concepts of engineering design and sound. Children engage in activities that explore how vibrating matter can make sound, and how sound can travel through an object. After reading the book The Snail and the Whale, they then apply this learning to engage in an engineering design task. Working in teams, they design a communication device to help solve a problem on a speedboat out at sea.  Here is what Mrs. Loughner said: We...

53 teachers from West Sound and Mid-Columbia STEM Network participated in two after-school sessions, learning how to effectively implement K-2 Energy Storytime STEM-packs in the classroom. Everyone enjoyed the captivating story The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and had fun building their windmill. Teachers collaborated in Zoom breakout rooms to think about how we use electricity in community places, inspired by Daisy, a young girl riding around her town on the back of her dad’s motorcycle, in the book My Papi has a Motorcycle.  Feedback from the teachers showed how confident they now are to implement STEM with their young...

Science educators from around the country joined local organizations to offer science demonstrations and activities to hundreds of Pittsburgh-area students at the Hands-On Science Showdown. This one-of-a-kind program was held on the Ninth Street Rachel Carson Bridge Sept. 14, 2022. More than 1,400 science and technology museum professionals were in Pittsburgh for the ASTC annual conference, held this year at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center from Sept. 11-15, with many of the organizations participating in the event. Hundreds of students in grades two through eight attended this free event that was also open to the public. The event featured...

Look at the large amount of research as revealed in the article, “Math in the Early Years, A Strong Predictor for Later School Success,” published in The Progress of Education Reform, October, 2013.  Just to cite one piece of research in that list, Dr. Greg Duncan in “School Readiness and Later Achievement” writes about his discovery that “early math concepts, such as knowledge of numbers and ordinality, were the most powerful predictors of later learning.”  Early mathematical understanding not only predicts later success in mathematics through high school, but also predicts later literacy achievement even better than early literacy skill...