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Hello, I've been coordinating a Family Science Night in February the past 2 years. We are considering changing this to STEAM night and involving faculty in other divisions. We usually center our hands-on family activity around a theme (water and motion have been covered). I have read some of the posts on STEAM, and have seen the resources provided by www.getcaughtengineering.com and www.stemtosteam.org. I was wondering if anyone had other great ideas for STEAM themes for our event. It is in Feb. at night in MA, so it has to be an indoor activity!! Thanks!

We have a blog on our website with ideas from a STEAM camp we ran at an art museum last summer. We also have a STEAM board on our Pinterest page that has lots of ideas that might work for you. Wendy getcaughtengineering.com

I follow the your Pinterest page and have tried to use some of the pins in my classroom. Are there additional resources for STEAM? In my school science is a rare, maybe once a week and there is no longer an art department. I would really love to be able to integrate more art and science into the classroom. Your suggestions would be appreciated! I am also loving the Science Family Night and wonder if that is something that I can get my school to think about, interested in seeing what ideas you get Sarah!

We would like to recommend Ann Jolly’s STEM by Design blog at Middle Web. She does a great job each a month covering all aspects of STEM and STEAM and we highly recommend it as a terrific resource. http://www.middleweb.com/category/stem-by-design/ Wendy http://www.getcaughtengineering.com http://www.facebook.com/GetCaughtEngineering http://www.pinterest.com/getcaughtengin/

So excited to use some of the STEM ideas I found on Pinterest, I find that they are very useful and can be very educational and engaging for students. THANKS!! :0)

My principal wants us to start a STEAM night at our school. I teach chorus & guitar, but we also have band and orchestra. Any suggestions or ideas that you can throw my way to help this cross-curricular activity be successful would be extremely appreciated. Mike

Thank you all so much for the links and suggestions! We'll be solidifying ideas soon, so I'll let you know what we end up doing! Thanks again, Sarah

Our STEAM night is this week. I'll post about how it goes after the fact. Our plan is to have several rooms set up with teacher volunteers and the following activities: DNA extraction from fruit and building a double helix model, investigating angles and designing Popsicle stick snowflakes, building mini-catapults and catapult painting, building marble rollways, and bubble painting. Thank you all for the resources. I will include more info about each of our activities after the event.

I am very excited about this. I think it is a great resource. Thank you for sharing.

I do have updating the results from our STEAM night on my to-do list- just have been wrapped up with the end of the school year craziness! I will post all the details of our STEAM night soon!

We had our Family STEAM night last week and we wanted to share one of the activities we added this year that was very popular. We collected various old computer and phone parts, added simple tools and googles and let the students "dissect the machines". Families loved it and kids didn't want to leave. The volunteers running it had a good enough background to point out and discuss with the children what the various parts were that were being pulled out. We were careful not to have equipment that had parts that could be dangerous (i.e.TVs and some small kitchen appliances were donated but we did not use them due to safety issues). We know that next year we will have to increase that center's size and the number of volunteers as we anticipate the demand will be huge for that activity. Wendy www.getcaughtengineering.com

This is fantastic, an idea I may incorporate in the upcoming school year.

What age range will be attending the program? I would say it in touch with some local engineers or your local university to see if a professor or group would come out to do an experiment or something. During our Science night we had students from our local high school come and perform some of thier Science projects. They were great!

There is a GREAtTbook I love to use.... It is called STEM NIGHT FAMILY FUN from A to Z.

I would also check out the Arizona Science Center for ideas and materials that you can possibly order for a STEAM Night or even a STEAM Club after school. They have GREAT stuff!

My district is newly incorporating a STEAM lab in the coming school year, and I'm enjoying reading these ideas to share and learn from!