Are you raising a STEM kid? STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and it’s the new buzzword in kids education across the world.
The push to get kids involved in STEM-based learning is based around the idea that these subjects are vital to our increasingly high-tech economy and world.
When President Barack Obama launched the White House initiative, “Educate to Innovate” in 2009, it acted as a call to action to schools and businesses to increase and improve STEM education across the U.S.
Now the STEM idea has taken off across the world, particularly in the growing need to lure more young girls into these traditionally male-dominated industries.
STEM based learning is even making a splash in the toy aisle, with science and tech-based toys pitched at even the youngest kids. Products like, Goldie Blox, the engineering doll whose goal is to get girls building, TinkerBots the LEGO style robotic building block that teaches kids to code kinesthetically, and the LEGO Research Institute a new LEGO figurine set featuring a female astronomer, paleontologist and chemist, are all taking the STEM ideas and turning them into fun and engaging toys that kids want to play with.
One of the central thrusts to the STEM movement is a growing call to get more kids into coding. Code.org is a non-profit US based organization that aims to make sure coding is part of the core curriculum for kids of all ages. Some of their supporters include - Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson…and even Snoop Dogg. Yishan Wong, the CEO of internet mega-site, Reddit make this strident call to action on the Code.org website, underlining the importance of coding and STEM learning: “One hundred years ago, people were faced with the choice of learning to read or remaining illiterate laborers who would be left behind as have-nots in a rapidly modernizing world. In the coming century, being able to command a world that will be thoroughly computerized will set apart those who can live successfully in the future from those who will be utterly left behind.“
Are your kids interested in STEM subjects? Are there are toys or games that you use to encourage STEM learning?
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