As educators, we have the power to make a big impact on our students. We can expose students to career paths they might not learn about otherwise, including STEM jobs.
To have a STEM career, you need to study a STEM discipline in college. To get to college, you need to take science and math courses in high school, which means being exposed to the subjects at the middle and elementary level. So in other words, you can never start science and math education too early.
Boler Davis knows what it’s like to explore science topics early because she did so herself. As a kid, she was household handyman, fixing appliances such as the radio, toaster, and iron. Her family encouraged it and was delighted at the results. Later, a middle school teacher noticed her scientific curiosity and encouraged her to become an engineer.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)—now adopted in 19 states and the District of Columbia—includes inquiry-based curriculum beginning in kindergarten. According to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), elementary students learn science best when they explore, investigate, and partake in inquiry and process skills.
Understanding that students need science activities that allow them to explore and investigate, we designed a hands-on activity to accompany the story about Alicia Boler Davis. Students build and test two different toy cars. Here's how our team created it in the office.