Engaging Students in STEM

Photo: University of Michigan Ann Arbor GEAR UP

Many of GEAR UP’s target student populations are also those that are underrepresented in STEM. Therefore, it’s critical to ensure STEM programming engages everyone.

Tip #1: Make STEM accessible to all students

  • Include STEM activities in direct classroom experiences to make STEM accessible to all students attending the school. Don’t treat it as an enrichment tool. Use STEM practices (student-driven, interdisciplinary, open-ended) to guide classroom instruction.

  • Ensure activities and lessons meet the needs of all students and all students are capable of understanding. 

  • Reach students where they are at. It may be a challenge for staff to go outside of our comfort zone, but reach students where they may be (utilizing the apps they like, media they use, pop culture that’s trendy, etc.) and creatively integrate how it relates to STEM.

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Tip #2: Build STEM identities in students

  • Encourage participation from all students regardless of background. Show them that working as a team on STEM they can capitalize on each other's strengths.  Everyone has something to add to achieve STEM goals.

  • Representation matters! 

    • Learn about people in STEM who have similar backgrounds.

    • Bring in guest speakers that have the same background as the students and have them talk about their journey. 

  • Use the community as a resource including its people, jobs, colleges, etc. 

  • Find something that students already do or have interest in that they likely do not even know is STEM. Show them how it is connected to STEM and assure them that it is something they are able to do too.

Tip #3: Design STEM programming to appeal to students

  • Make it relevant to students and their interests. If students are excited about the activity they don’t realize how much they are learning as they work through the activity. 

  • Utilize interest surveys and focus on match and fit.

  • Ideas can come from anywhere. The more ideas, particularly that come from students, the more interest that students may have. The implementation should be supported by program directors and grant directors, so that people involved know that it is “official”.

  • Hands-on learning and activities are the best way to get student’s attention, so plan on labs and experiments for the students to complete. Offer demonstrations and provide excellent guest speakers with examples and activities to show kids what these fields and careers are capable of. 

  • Combine interactive STEM activities with near-peer connections (e.g. older students lead younger students). This creates a completely different experience for students and can reach those that a teacher-taught activity may not be able to impact as much. 

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Our STEM program incorporates many areas to include Forestry, Fire Fighting, Engineers, Water treatment, Weather, Robotics, Soil and land, agriculture, and more. We bring in a variety of people in these fields during our STEM programming. For example, Oklahoma Forestry is coming to our camp to show how math is a huge part of forestry. The students will work with all the fun gadgets to calculate lumber, tree health, and more.

Loran Mayes, Eastern Oklahoma GEAR UP

Tip #4: Make STEM programming relevant

  • Connect what students are learning in math and science classrooms to real world applications.

    • Draw in current events that offer local or global perspectives of the problems and challenges being faced across the city or globe.

    • Find local organizations that are working on this issue or bring in an advocate to talk about the issues around the topic and help it connect to STEM to add context to their project.

    • Consider incorporating and connecting social justice issues our communities are facing to STEM content.

  • Use problem-based learning. Ask educators to look for the problems / challenges that are related to what they teach, then think about the jobs related to those challenges.

    • This can take time and space, and greatly benefits from collaboration. Engage your community to hypercharge this process!

Resources & articles