On this day, students stop on a hike and look up to the treetops to see a giant eagle's nest. Two students build a small "farm" of soil, rocks and leaves before adding water to learn how to keep it strong and safe from erosion. Students use magnifying glasses to understand how a variety of rocks were formed, how they are similar and different. Then the magnifying glasses become tools to look at each other, look at their hands and fingers, look at their surroundings.
They explore with every step.
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. At The STEM Connection, Founder and Executive Director Vera Vander Kooy says STEM is used in all things. The learning nonprofit, with a variety of ecosystems, targets kindergarten to fifth-graders, but it also believes in encouragement and empowerment with professional development for educators as well as training middle, high school and college students to become mentors.
Kids work through outdoor activities in all weather conditions using science to study the world around them, using any tool that helps them work, like a ruler or measuring cup.
The STEM Connection uses the same STEM skills they teach, being flexible and not afraid to fail but pivoting to improve, to grow, to reach others.
When COVID hit, that belief system went into action. COVID became the catalyst to learn how to teach differently, how to reach people differently, starting online education videos, building kits with supplies for kids to use at home, reaching people statewide and nationally.
Vander Kooy is passionate about STEM education and making a difference for youth, including reaching those underrepresented: girls, those with limited access, children of color, and those with "unique" or special needs. She aims to make The STEM Connection a place for everyone because there are STEM skills used in everything. The ultimate goal is to guide kids to learn to approach the future that no one can even imagine, using STEM tools to navigate challenges with confidence.
STEM can do that, says Vander Kooy. It can solve problems in a world that is continuously moving faster. She and her staff provide a safe place to fail, a place to use those "failures" as just one more learning tool. No one is going to always get it right, she says, or be good at everything. They may not know what their future will be but with resilience, they will be able to face it. Vander Kooy feels that the young scientists can learn to overcome obstacles including ones seen now with learning loss due to COVID.
The STEM Connection plants a seed, says Vander Kooy. The seed becomes the ever-present idea that we are all scientists, she says, and that lifelong learning and communication are good prospects for all as they move through life.
And on this day, spending hours outside, sometimes in the rain and mud, these students are true scientists.
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