For those of you who aren’t that familiar with STEM yet, let us explain to you. STEM education involves and integrates four core subjects: science, technology, engineering, and math.
These four subjects are not taught as separate disciplines, but rather as an entire concept altogether based on real-life applications and providing students 21st-century skills.
Recent studies show that fewer students take interest in STEM-related education. With only 16% of high school students wanting to pursue an STEM-related career and 57% losing interest in the curriculum once they graduate, STEM education has been bringing up some seriously alarming concerns.
Losing interest in STEM education can be the result of ineffective lesson plans and teaching strategies. This fluctuation can be a real problem for businesses, organizations, and teaching establishments that harness the skills of STEM pursuers.
What educators can do, is to come up with new and more effective plans to increase the attention span of their students. They can use any of these 15 free resources and online tools for STEM teachers to help them in this area.
Recommended STEM Tools for Teachers
- Campus Ties: Campus Ties offers micro-courses and built-in tests devised by trusted professionals. Micro-certificates are also given to learners who have completed a course.
- CLEAN: This website offers a collection of more than 600 free resources created and verified by esteemed scientists and teachers.
- Energy.gov: Featured in this US government-based website are free energy literacy videos that educators can pull out and show their students. For more videos, you can also check out their Youtube channel.
- Exxon Mobil: Exxon Mobil offers a variety of programs and information particularly related to maths and sciences, as well as real-world applications. It also includes useful tools for STEM teachers.
- MIT Blossoms: MIT Blossoms offers math and science videos for high school learners.
- NASA Digital Learning Network: They aren’t only discovering new planets and galaxies. NASA’s free-for-all digital learning network offers premium lessons about space technology and other STEM-related careers. They feature only the most capable experts and guest speakers for their lessons.
- National Science Board: The National Science Board is a government-backed website that offers standardized action plans and regularly updated STEM educational opportunities.
- National Science Digital Library: The National Science Digital Library is an extensive collection of educational materials for educators and learners of all levels, including STEM. These materials are curated by teaching experts that serve as digital librarians.
- PhET: This free interactive website is filled with fun and enjoyable simulations that pertain to the four core subjects of STEM education. It has delivered over 360 million simulations since it started in the year 2002.
- Planetarium: This website lets you explore the heavenly bodies in your browser. You can also add this as an extension for Google Chrome users.
- Save on Energy: Save on Energy is a fun and free way to make your students learn about the science of electricity. It features animated infographics that demonstrate the principles and movements of electricity.
- Science Fair Projects: This website is a treasure chest of ideas for science experiments and projects.
- Space School: Space School is a Canadian educational initiative that aims to provide premium online training for students in the following key areas–STEM, Coding, Space Technology, Robotics, and Problem Solving.
- Teacher Challenge: This website contains a list of more than 20 STEM educational tools that teachers may find helpful and interesting.
- Tinkercad: A website that offers free 3D models for printing and teaching.
Some thoughts to conclude
Pairing the right STEM education online tools with your teaching skills will not only make you a more effective educator; it will also make learning more fun for your students.
Don’t forget that having a consistent interest in STEM education is key to reaping more success in STEM-related careers. For additional STEM inspiration, check out the CoderZ online learning environment, which is helping educators to teach STEM with virtual 3D robots. You can actually request a 14-day free trial here.