Tag Archives: stem

A growing body of research points to the importance of engaging children in science from an early age, for both their future trajectories in science careers and school readiness. For some children, preschool provides the chance to engage in meaningful science learning. But, for the 46% of American 3- and 4-year-olds who do not attend preschool, opportunities for science enrichment are limited. For such children, accessing science experiences depends almost entirely on parents. However, many parents have limited experience supporting…

On October 26, 2018, over 50 key stakeholders in early education gathered at the Idaho Early STEM Summit in Boise. Led by the Idaho STEM Action Center (STEM AC), this convening of professionals—comprised of representatives from research institutions, government agencies, libraries, and community-based organizations—is the first of its kind in the state to focus on advocacy for STEM opportunities for young children ages birth through age 8. Boise State University’s College of Education opened our morning with a presentation on…

A recent study commissioned by Iridescent revealed 78% of underrepresented families want to learn more about technologies like AI despite their mixed emotions about how these technologies work and their potential impact on jobs. The online study, conducted by VeraQuest, found that while 80% of low-income families believe technologies like AI will take away too many jobs, the interest to learn about new,  “mysterious” technologies is high. However, access to these educational opportunities remain a significant barrier; more than 75% of…

If you happened to be visiting Independence National Historical Park in late October, you might have seen some of us educators and park rangers walking around with cell phones and taking pictures of things not normally featured on the postcards sold in the Park’s gift store. In addition to the Liberty Bell and the Mall, these photos included steam coming out of manhole covers, late budding plants growing along the parks’ edges, sidewalk patterns made of river stones, bricks and…

Claudia Haines, librarian at Homer Public Library in Homer, Alaska, describes a recent Storytime with Robots event that she hosted in which children and their parents had the opportunity to think about computational thinking along with early literacy. This post was originally published on Claudia’s blog, Never Shushed, and appears here with permission. I’ve been reading and thinking A LOT about computational thinking (CT) and coding this winter as part of my work on the Libraries Ready to Code initiative.…

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is thrilled to announce the recipients of the Families Learning Across Boundaries (FamLAB) Spark Grants, a program designed to identify, support, and promote innovative approaches to help children and youth ages 3-12 learn more deeply across home, community, and school settings. These four cross-sectoral teams represent a community of researchers, practitioners, and developers who are exploring ways to facilitate learning across boundaries, and these projects were selected for their potential to scale…

In Jackson, Mississippi, researchers visited a family of seven (including a niece and nephew), headed by a stay-at-home mom in her 20s. During the visit, the children sat around the mom as she described their latest learning activities, including 1-on-1 homework time and making “slime.” One activity—planting a seed in the yard in front of their apartment building—garnered a lot of excitement. Here’s how the mom described her family’s experience. “[My son] wanted to know, ‘How did that tree get…

Ask Americans where kids are learning the skills they’ll need to participate in the 21st-century workforce, and you’ll likely hear the same answer over and over again: home or school. That’s how most members of the U.S. public respond when asked about where learning takes place, according to the work we’ve done at the FrameWorks Institute, a communications think tank in Washington, DC. And that way of thinking applies to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, our new report…

In this second installment of the Podcasts for Families series, I was thrilled to be able to interview the enthusiastic Mindy Thomas, co-host of Wow in the World, a show featuring cool science and technology. If you haven’t listened to their show yet, this interview will give you a pretty good sense of what to expect! Although there’s not a totally contiguous storyline in this show, the big personalities of hosts Mindy Thomas and Guy Raz—along with regular characters like Reggie…

If you follow the news or have a child in school, it’s easy to believe that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts are more prominent than ever before. And certainly, the importance of STEM learning and STEM experiences are enjoying a renaissance of media coverage. The reality is, however, that our children have always been capable of STEM learning, yet we are just now learning more about how and when to encourage this type of thinking in a way…