Are You Still In The Pursuit of Science?

Have you stumbled across an interesting science program on the History or Science Channel and ended up staying for an expected journey that held you captivated by explaining the “why” of something extreme?

STEM Science is Vital for K-12 and Beyond

Opportunities for a child to explore the extreme beyond the classroom can be expanded with a visit to a museum and clubs outside of school.

On the drawing board, nationwide,  are programs to build fun experiences in science for under represented groups in America.

And finally, college level educators are looking to engage students for a life long exploration without scaring the science and math out of their reach of interest.

In the audio interview by NPR U.S. Science Education: Rethinking How Kids Learn, the question is asked why is there a high rate of drop out in college level science and engineering.

Did your science or math professor scare the curiosity right out of you?

Girls and boys alike are curious by nature. Changing the social norm of hands-on for boys and dress up for girls means equal opportunities for all students to explore the world around us.

A colleague and I are building a new STEM club at our math, science, technology middle school magnet in Central Florida. We have looked at club successes from the past and we have analyzed the decline of some clubs, as well. Bringing together what works and weeding out a long term commitment, we hope will build the science muscles of these targeted learners.

I think “science in small doses” is a good place to begin.

Mapping out a series of units based on key science learning needs for our students on campus is complete. Now we begin our pursuit of the under resourced students mentioned in the NPR interview embedded above.

“It has to be fun so they will want to sign up for another session,”  I’ve mentioned to my colleague. Our space lab is designed as a STEM discovery lab so the environment is rich in hands-on fun. I also know that “what looks good on paper” may not go as smoothly as we hope.

I want to bring in those students who have had the curiosity of science scared out of them. I want to wow them back to what comes naturally: being curious, on purpose, and without fear of messing up.

~Kay

Kay Borglum, MS

Space Lab and Biotechnology Science Teacher (FL)

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2011 at 10:39 pm. It is filed under STEM and tagged with college, engineering, florida, hands on, math, NPR, research, science, STEM, STEM education teacher, STEM resource, students, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.