WITF, LIU12, IU13, & CAIU15 STEM Adventure

Throughout the months of July and August of 2020, PBS partnered with PAIU to bring you learning resources at home. This school year presented us with some big challenges but helped remind us how creative and innovative we can be. These project plans are designed to be fun and relaxed. They are all based on supporting your child’s natural desire to explore and understand.

WITF and IUs 12, 13, and 15 have collaborated in creating the following resources for a STEM Adventure opportunity combining Engineering by Design with the programming provided by WITF.

Explore the Resources for your STEM Adventure!

What is STEM?

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education is an integrated, interdisciplinary, and student-centered approach to learning that encourages curiosity, creativity, artistic expression, collaboration, computational thinking, communication, problem solving, critical thinking, and design thinking. Though these sound like big, difficult ideas for young children, children are using these skills every day in play and discovery.

Observing, measuring, making guesses, testing ideas, building things, and solving problems are natural to children at play. When we help children think and talk about what they are doing, we help support learning. By encouraging this kind of thinking, we are giving children the tools to be the innovators of tomorrow.

We have created these project plans to allow your child to interact with the material in the way that feels best for him or her. You can:

Watch a program on your PBS Station
Use online resources to support learning
Read a book
Talk with your child
Do hands on activities (including extension activities to try more)
Be active
Learn about STEM Careers

How can you help?

The supplies you need for each activity are listed each week.

Talk with your child as you explore each plan. Ask your child to make guesses about what might happen next or what a program might be about based on words, pictures, and ideas. Practicing making inferences helps children be effective readers.

Ask them to explain the steps of what they are doing. Talking through a process helps children to become organized writers.

After a program, a story or an activity, ask children to reflect on their guesses or inferences they had at first. What did they learn? What did they guess correctly? Reflecting on our experiences helps children make learning their own.

Have fun! Model that learning about the world is fun and exciting!

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