eevBLAB 90 - How to get Kids into STEM at School?

How do you get kids into STEM at school?

Buy anything through that link and Dave gets a commission at no cost to you.

Donate With Bitcoin & Other Crypto Currencies!

#ElectronicsCreators #STEM #SCHOOL

[Psi]

I think the kids are already well into STEAM.

[Mic_Glow]

1) tours. There is a huge need for electricians/ engineers/ welders etc. Companies/ workshops struggling to get workers will gladly show a class around. Even if just one of those kids likes what he or she sees and applies for work/ apprenticeship 3 years down the line, it will be worth it.
2) practical demonstrations
3) real-life examples. (almost) no one likes barren equations and definitions
4) show them Practical Engineering channel videos from YT
5) sexy teacher

[jetseverschuren]

Here, in The Netherlands, there actually is a new school concept, called Agora. The idea is that there are no lessons, but you work all day, every day, on projects of your choosing. And sure, there are some kinks to work out, but the concept is really awesome. I was one of the first 60 or so students ever to start the program, and I loved it! Of the 6 years of high school (or whatever the equivalence is), I spent 4 years doing cool stuff, and only two years on learning stuff so I got the papers to go to university. I think they changed to to 3 now, but are adding more freedoms in working towards the end exam. Like I said, there are still kinks to work out, and it's constantly evolving.

[Ratchet_effect]

Back when I was in science class at school, teacher would give us a hand full of components, we had to come up with our own project! & show it working then write about it.
How & what made us come up with the idea, why we used those components, I made an LDR light switch, sensor circuit. Its simple but.. back then it was fascinating!

[mathis]

Im not actually that sure if we should get more kids into STEM. This implies that it is something that anyone should do. I think it is fine to just present its existence to kids and have them figure out if they are interested or not. Certainly worked fine for me. So in more general terms let the kids work on something they are interested in from any topic, not just STEM and naturally those who are interested in STEM will choose that.
Im also a bit annoyed that "Art" is now trying to sneak itsself to the same status as science... Dont get me wrong, art is great, but its got nothing to do with STEM. It has no place in this acronym.

[UselessDuckCompany]

I agree with your take on it. I hated reading in school as it was all assigned books, then one day I was asked what subjects I liked and I picked up Hitchhiker's Guide and Ender's Game. Turned out reading was actually not terrible... I think it's similar with Stem, it's better to give options than to force it. I have read some stories of kids who had a lot of anxiety because their parents tried to force stem on them and they felt they had to pretend to like it to make their parents happy, and that makes me sad, it's just not for everyone and that's ok.

[JohnBurgessMusic]

I definitely agree with self-selecting a project to work on. I can relate personally, since my electronics designs are always based around some problem or larger project I need, rather than building some little device just for the sake of it. As for students I always incorporate some engineering and math into music education as the tools we use for music require math and engineering, whether physical instruments, electronic analogue audio or digital audio. If a student ends up being interested and focused on those subjects instead, I'm still happy for them.

[BGTech]

As a kid who often get made fun of for being interested electronics and how things work, I can confidently say there are very few kids like me out there. That’s one of the reason why I made my YouTube Channel. Maybe my videos will open the eyes of other kids into the unseen world of electronics and how things work.

[BiigiieCheeese]

You have to show a practical application for STEM/STEAM. Very few people actually use concepts they learned. Ask yourself how often do you use law of cosines outside of work?

[a.lithia]

How to get into steam? Simple! First you need to download a steam client...

Just kidding. I'm grateful that one of the toys my parents bought me (at an age of 10 I think) was a cheap microcontroller kit and a cheap soldering iron. I started by doing small projects such as digital clocks, temperature controller and video playback. I was so amazed by how fundamental such a small chip is in our modern life, that the curiosity eventually drove me to read the book Digital Design and Computer Architecture all by myself. Today I'm working in a VLSI lab.

A close friend of mine has a more remarkable start: He was raised in western China, near the barren deserts. Also at about the age of 10, he found a military radar handbook in his school library (I have no idea why a middle school shelved such a book). He learned all the basic theories about microwave and radar, and the vacuum tube circuits that implements those complex systems. Today he is working in a research institute.

Playing with your stuff is important. That's why LEGO is such an unintrusive toy to learn statics in the early years.
The electronic building blocks you can get cheap from china are pretty much the same. You put the blocks together and every time something does not work as intended, you will learn something new.

Play with it for a while, if it does not click try something else.

[OtherDalfite]

At my school, we had a BEST Robotics competition that was coached by a physics teacher. I can almost fully thank that program and my teacher for pushing me to go to college and get a STEM degree. I'm now a testing engineer at a tractor implement company and love it.

[deth]

"some ppl say an hour is not enough time"

no, i think youre on exactly the right path. an hour is such a small part of the week that no one will complain about it and can be easily implemented, but that could be all that is needed to create the spark that ignites the fire. once the kids get that interest in something, they will WANT it more. then they will seek it out, either being on their own time as a hobby or choosing clsses that push them to the stem fields.

[donepearce]

I knew I was interested in science and engineering before I started school. I was lucky to have science teachers who were happy to encourage that. A friend's daughter who goes to a girls' boarding school had just completed a project where they designed and built an electric car. She is very excited about that.

[RobertFeranec]

That's the only way what worked for my kids - they have to work on something what they come up with and they would like to create. When I come up with a project (even I believe it's an interesting one), mostly they start yawning within 1 minute.

[PMFXStudios]

What got me into electrical engineering and later into embedded software was actually similar to your suggestion. In my last year at school after the final exams we had some weeks left before the school year ended and our teacher gave us an electronics catalog and told us to think of a project, give her a list of all components it required, she ordered them for us and we had 1, 5h every week to work on that project in school. The school covered the costs. I ordered an arduino and an LED dot matrix and soon noticed, that the time in school was not enough, so I worked at it from home in my free time. That really sparked my interest in engineering and software development in exactly the time in life, when the decission what I want to study had to be made - so perfect timing!

[niklasxl]

what really got me interested in engineering was starting to learn how and why stuff worked thanks to a really good physics and math teacher explaining phenomena and uses really well

[RyeOnHam]

It really steams me when they say, "STEAM". Listen, arts students. STEM is unique only because it doesn't include the arts. STEAM is just education. Arts are just education without a useful purpose.

[lucasmagno]

Completely agree with you. I also think it is particularly important to let the kids fail, let them try to figure it out on their own, and only if they are stuck give them hints. Try to never give the answer even if it is an incredibly simple one. That way they will hopefully get addicted to the "aha it works" moment like I am sure most of us are.

[Haskellerz]

Given them a screwdriver and a multimeter
And tell them, "Don't turn it on, take it apart!"

The easiest way to learn engineering is to take apart real life existing systems and take a look how they work.