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Hello, My name is Angela and I am currently in college to become an elementary school teacher. It has come to my attention while observing classrooms that there is not much involvement of the STEM field in the lower grade-level classrooms. I feel that that this should change because STEM is very interesting and children should have a chance to be exposed to it at a young age. My question is, How can I as a future teacher involve STEM in my classroom? 

Hi Angela,

As future teachers, we need to eager and have the ability to support STEM learning during the early childhood and elementary education, but to be able to do so we need to be informed through instruction and professional training in order to have self-confidence and not let our personal negative assumptions regarding sciences affect children while teaching. Engaging in playful learning guided by students' sense of wonder and curiosity will lead to a deeper sciences understanding and greater learning process.

Strive to use classic kids building toys like Legos, Lincoln Logs, blocks, etc.... You can ask around for donations of these, check out garage sales and thrift stores. Use story books to find 'problems' or 'challenges' students can solve by inventing and building.  Have fun!

After a lot of research with K-3 STEM lessons in my free time, I've noticed a lot of integration with children's literature and engineering. For example, if the anchor text is Three Little pigs, students can build their own houses with different materials. This can be done before the story, in between pages or after! As Anne Marie Wotkyns said above me, using stories to solve problems or challenges seems like an easy way to integrate STEM without a full lesson. 

I agree. I believe the best way to implement STEM in the classroom, especially lower elementary, is to make it relevent and interesting to them. As mentioned above, you can use blocks which are items they're already familiar with, or a story to help make connections for them. By scaffolding you are tapping into knowledge they already have of these items and building off of them.

I have been learning so much in my college STEM class about the importance of early integrated STEM concepts in the elementary curriculum. I think finding ways to make these concepts interesting and fun to students will greatly impact their memory and application of STEM ideas. My professor asked us on the first day of class to recall a lesson that we did in elementary school. Every answer was a project-based lesson with STEM concepts incorporated in some way. This spoke volumes to me on the impact of STEM and making it interesing and engaging for students!