Teacher Resources

 

Below you will find a variety of STEM lessons, activities and resources that can support PK-12 STEM educators in providing quality, equitable, teaching and learning experiences for their students.

All of the lessons and activities in the highlighted boxes were developed with guidance by the STEM Education Center. If you are interested in learning more about our professional development opportunities, please visit our PD website.

As additional resources for educators, we have compiled several resources on anti-racism, as well as promoting diversity and inclusion in STEM. The journey towards just and equitable education starts with our own learning.

Preview Preschool students designing something
PreK & Kindergarten

Seeds of STEM

Seeds of STEM is a year-long, standards-aligned, STEM curriculum for preschool and pre-K classrooms that engages early childhood students in problem solving activities

To encourage teachers and parents to solve problems with their young children at home, Seeds of STEM is offering weekly STEM activities, derived from the curriculum and simplified for the home environment. A full year classroom curriculum is available after PD training.

 

Preview drawing of two young goats reading a book together
Grades PK-7

I am STEM Lesson Library

The I am STEM lesson library was created by teachers for teachers thanks to a grant from the MA STEM Advisory Council. It consists of a wide variety of STEM challenges which follow the engineering design process to have students solve problems in books!  The 5-day lessons are aligned to grade-level science or math and ELA standards and incorporate culturally and linguistically responsive teaching practices. 

 

Preview STEM Certified Badge
Grades PK-12

STEM Certified Projects

Since 2019, the STEM Education Center has hosted nine co-horts of PK-12 educators for the STEM Educator Certiticate Course. During that time, educators developed more than 70 high quality, integrated STEM Challenges. We are excited to provide a sneak peek of a few challenges that were recently featured at our Project Presentation Day celebration. More lessons are expected to be released in the coming months. Stay tuned!

 

Preview Two smiling teachers working in a lab
Grades 6-12

Research Experience for Teachers

During the summer of 2022, WPI hosted a Research Experience for Teachers(RET): Engineering for People and the Planet. Five in-service and five pre-service teachers participated in authentic research experiences on campus for six weeks. During this time, they also received weekly professional development and worked to translate their research experience into a lesson that could be used with middle or high school students.

 

Preview Two teachers designing a bridge
Grades PK-12

Engineering Design Activities

These three real world problem activities were developed by the STEM Education Center for Massachusetts STEM Week  in 2019. They include a short opening bridge design activity (one lesson or shorter), a 2-lesson STEM challenge related to properties of materials, and a full week STEM project about natural disasters connected to K-12 engineering standards, as well as more specifically, grades 3, 4 or 7 earth science standards. 

 

Preview Two teachers at a table with materials
Grades PK-12

AweSTEM!

Over the past several years, AweSTEM! has provided the STEM Education Center with the opportunity to recognize educators and education leaders for their outstanding work in STEM education. In addition, educators have presented dozens of STEM lessons and projects and have shared student experiences.

You can find links to numerous teacher developed (2014-2019) resources and project ideas by clicking on each year provided in the column on the right.. 

 

 

Anti-Racism Resources for STEM Educators

How do we address inequalities and opportunity gaps in STEM education?  This resource provides articles and classroom tools for helping educators grapple with these critical issues. While this is not a complete list, our Center has found these resources useful for our own journey toward becoming equity-minded educators. We hope you will find them useful as well.

Defining Race, Racism, and Being Antiracist

16 ways to help children become thoughtful, informed, and BRAVE about race (Article) - EmbraceRace

5 Things You Should Know About Racism (Video: @ 6 min)

Talking About Race  (Website) - National Museum of African American History & Culture

16 Words and Definitions to Kickstart Your Anti-Racism Journey (Article) - Medium

Are you racist? 'No' isn't a good enough answer (Video: < 2.5 min) - Marlon James, The Guardian

Dismantling Racism Works Web Workbook (Website) - DR Workbook

Anti-Racism Resource List (Resource List) - 100Kin10

Seeing White (Podcast) - John Biewen, Chenjerai Kumanyika

Anti-Racism Resource Roundup (Website) - Caise Informal Science

 

Understanding Implicit and Systemic Racism

Lesson About Privilege (Video >2 mins)

Systemic Racism Explained (Video @4 mins)

Harvard Implicit Associations Test (Website) - Harvard

Social Identities And Systems Of Oppression (Website) - National Museum of African American History & Culture

21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge (Resource List) - Edit Moore Jr.

5 Tips for Being an Ally (Video) - Franchesca Ramsey

Racism and Education
Racism and STEM fields

Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in STEM

Make STEM more relevant and meaningful for students so they can "see themselves in STEM."  This list of resources can assist you in incorporating a diverse array of STEM professionals including stories not often found in traditional textbooks.  We hope this is a useful tool!

Diversity in STEM
Teaching STEM with Diversity in Mind
Diversity in STEM Role Models and Careers

Additional Online STEM Teaching Resources

We did our best to compile a list of resources that are free, engaging, easy to use and aligned with state standards and STE practices. Since there seem to be so many resources available, we focused on high-quality STEM & PBL resources and activities.

General Science/STEM Online Resources
Interactive STEM Activities
Project-Based Learning
Coding and Computational Thinking
Remote Learning Tools

To get you started: 

STEM Teaching Tools—Supporting Students’ Science Learning

These tools and resources may assist you with communicating with your students/classes online.

  • ASSISTments - a web-based mathematics assignment and analysis tool
  • Book Creator - an online tool for creating and publishing digital books
  • Brush Ninja - a web-based tool for creating hand-drawn animated GIFs
  • Canva - a web-based graphic design platform
  • Coggle - a web-based tool for creating collaborative concept maps and diagrams
  • EdPuzzle - an online tool that allows you to create interactive video lessons
  • Educreations - an interactive whiteboard and screencasting tool
  • Edulastic - an online student assessment tool
  • FlipGrid - a video discussion platform 
  • Go Formative - a web-based student response and assessment tool
  • Graspable Math - a web-based interactive tool for math
  • Jamboard - an online, collaborative whiteboard tool
  • MathShare - an online tool for students to organize and share their processes
  • Milanote - an online workspace and project organizer
  • NearPod - an online tool that allows you to create interactive, media-rich presentations
  • Padlet - an online bulletin board
  • Pear Deck - a tool that allow you to create interactive presentations with Google slides
  • Scoutlier - an online learning platform
  • Screencastify - a Chrome browser extension that allows you to record your computer screen
  • SeeSaw - a platform for student engagement
  • Storyjumper - a website that lets students create and publish their own stories
  • Whiteboard.fi - an online whiteboard tool
  • Zoom - a cloud platform for video and audio conferencing

Looking for more?  Check out - Webinars for Teachers - by the MetroWest STEM Education Network

Join our email list!

Join the STEM Education Center mailing list to receive monthly newsletters about opportunities with WPI for PK-12 educators.