- STEM IE
- Making Content Relevant
- Resources
Resources and Further Reading about Making Content Relevant
Professional Development Resources on Making Content Relevant Developed by the STEM IE Project
Materials for professional development are provided. PowerPoint slides and an accompanying Facilitator's Guide can be customized for professional development offered to STEM summer program staff or used individually for self-study.
It can be challenging for ALs to know how the content in a variety of activities is relevant. Several resources are available to help.
A number of the programs that we studied had community partners who were knowledgeable about and engaged in practical applications of STEM content. These programs incorporated staff from community partners into designing and implementing camp activities. Summer programs that cannot incorporate community partners to this extent can still benefit from expertise within the community in other ways, such as establishing an Advisory Board that provides feedback and ideas, invites guest speakers, arranges field trips, or recruits interns to work in the camp.
Science360 videos are brief video clips made by scientists, laboratories, and their agencies to illustrate current stories and discoveries in STEM. These compelling videos are sponsored by the National Science Foundation and can be used by ALs to enhance their knowledge and/or can be shown to youth to spark their interest and demonstrate the relevance of STEM content. The Topics tab allows users to search by subject area (e.g., physics, earth and environment), and the Series tab lists and provides links to series such as the Science of NFL Football and other areas of interest common to youth.
Spark 101 provides video clips that expose ALs and youth to scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and computer scientists using their knowledge to solve problems.
Online materials at TED connect content to relevant issues. Search by tags for the specific STEM topics in your program.
Information about how mathematics is used in the workplace can be found at The Math Forum, and common applications of Algebra I standards are listed in a document compiled at California State University–Bakersfield.
General Resources and Further Reading
STEM Teaching Tools Developed at the University of Washington
A number of STEM teaching tools that may be useful to educators are available. You can find many of these tools with practical strategies for planning and enacting STEM learning activities at STEM Teaching Tools. Following are several practice briefs that highlight ways of working on specific issues that come up during STEM teaching:
- Climate change is relevant to the lives and future of youth. Scientific Literacy Involves Understanding Global Climate Change and What People Can Do About It provides ideas about how and why to engage youth in learning about climate change and some practical guidance for doing so.
- Although the examples
given in Getting Their Hands Dirty: Engaging Learners in Authentic Science Practices Outside the Classroom are about younger children, the importance of participating in outdoor activities and the guidelines and recommended practices are appropriate for young adolescents. - How Can Formative Assessment Support Culturally Responsive Argumentation in a Classroom Community? focuses on using the knowledge, interests, and experiences that youth bring to scientific argumentation. Youth who come from communities that have been underrepresented in the STEM field often have difficulty engaging in the authentic practice of scientific argumentation. This brief provides practical advice for those who work with youth on how to nurture their participation in scientific argumentation.
- What Is the Role of Informal Science Education in Supporting the Vision for K–12 Science Education? provides an argument for the importance of informal science education as a complement to school-based science curriculum and advocates for forming partnerships with ISL community agencies. Although this is geared toward schools, the flip side of having ISL community agencies serving youth reach out to schools to complement their curriculum is also a viable approach for helping youth understand the relevance of STEM content.
