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September 21, 2021
Many out-of-school time professionals confess that teaching or tutoring STEM subjects is their greatest fear. Well, the best weapon against fear is preparation! These resources from Y4Y around STEAM (STEM plus the arts) and citizen science will help alleviate those fears and make the most of STEM activities in your program.
Site coordinators can download and adapt Y4Y’s Training to Go PowerPoints for informal sessions in as little as 30 minutes. You can conduct them either in person, or virtually while staff are relaxing on their couch at home. With each title and link below are objectives of these trainings.
STEAM Trainings (also check out the Y4Y tool Everyday STEAM: Strategies for Staff).
Objectives: Describe the components, model design thinking and plan methods for the design thinking process.
Connecting to Real-World Challenges
Objectives: Use the design thinking process, identify real-world challenges facing your community, describe the relationship between STEAM projects and community partners, and prepare a specific ask for those partners.
Describe what a makerspace looks like and how it can support the STEAM approach to learning, plan key logistics (budget, schedule, materials and professional development), and describe ways to assess student learning in a makerspace.
Citizen Science Trainings (Also check out the many tools that accompany these trainings)
Objectives: Understand the importance of assessment, explore the difference between informal and formal assessment, and learn how to build an observation rubric.
Facilitating Learning to Practice Inquiry and Science Process Skills
Objectives: Discuss how the science process skills are supported through citizen science, understand the importance of inquiry, and guide students in using science process skills.
Introduction to Citizen Science
Objectives: Understand the definition of citizen science, explain its benefits, and explore strategies to engage students in citizen science.
What’s that you say, site coordinators? You dread public speaking as much as anyone else? You have limited time to prepare? You’re looking for professional development for your frontline staff to learn about facilitating STEM activities when it’s convenient for them? Here’s a shortcut: Check out these archived webinars (and their objectives) to help you choose the right trainings. Y4Y certificates of participation are only available to those who participate in live events, but don’t let that stop you.
State Highlight: Minnesota Citizen Science Initiative
Y4Y highlights the great work out-of-school time programs can achieve through partnerships with state agencies and community partners. Minnesota’s out-of-school time programs have worked in tandem with the University of Minnesota’s Pollinator Initiative, whose mission is to develop a coordinated research, education, extension, and policy-driven effort to address issues related to pollinators and pollination in Minnesota. Youth across the state learned about local plants and insects, operating as citizen scientists. Hear from the Minnesota state coordinator, program directors, facilitators, and partners on how they organized, implemented, and assessed projects.
When did STEM become STEAM, and why? Incorporating the arts into traditional STEM learning means exploring the design thinking process that’s central to engineering and other innovating careers. How can you expand STEAM in your 21st CCLC programs with limited time, budget and content knowledge? Learn a concrete process for planning and implementing problem-based design thinking. Work through how you can prepare your mind and your environment to develop high-quality activities that will propel your students into careers of the future. No prior knowledge necessary! This session is for experts, newbies and those in between!
Learning Approaches to Science-Based Education
This session is focused on methods for facilitating hands-on science education. Explore best practices in the scientific method, design thinking and the engineering design process to get students thinking and doing. By developing your knowledge of these hands-on strategies, you’ll expand your instructional toolkit and be ready to implement STEAM in your out-of-school time program.
Bringing Students and STEM Professionals Together! 21st CCLC STEM Collaboration With NASA and IMLS
Beginning in 2013, the U.S. Department of Education created an interagency initiative to integrate high-quality STEM programming into 21st CCLC programs by partnering with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), then the National Park Service (NPS), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). How can your program tap into national STEM-based initiatives and the rich curriculum and resources these agencies have to offer? Check out this archived webinar!
Wherever your STEM fears stem from (rimshot), Y4Y is here to support you! The greatest pioneers in science, technology, engineering and math took risks. Made mistakes. So, if you wobble a bit in facilitating the highest quality STEAM/STEM activities, guess what? That, in itself, is an important lesson to your students!