Jump Start Your STEM Program

A Future Driven by STEM

As digital natives, today’s students are comfortable exploring new technology, yet many continue to struggle with mathematics and science standards. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education prepares modern learners for a future rich in information and technology by engaging them in the exploration of natural phenomena.

Engaging students of all ages in STEM learning cultivates a range of technical and soft skills, including critical thinking skills, problem solving, perseverance, design thinking, collaboration, computational thinking, and creativity. Effective STEM activities integrate standards into open lessons within the context of real-world phenomena. Students usually begin with an introductory lesson that relates STEM to a real-world problem. Then, they’re asked to solve the problem using a variety of methods, including research, collaboration, inquiry, and testing. These real-world challenges encourage students to act as scientists as they research the issue, form an understanding, develop a solution, test, fail, collaborate, and succeed. Whether they’re programming, building, or measuring, STEM invites students to transition from observers to active participants in the learning process.

Featured STEM Solutions

Building Better Bridges

Forget the toothpicks and engage students with design-based learning as they create realistic bridges, manipulate weight loads, and learn about tension with the included Wireless Load Cell. These real-world designs encourage creativity, collaboration, and problem solving, while reinforcing engineering and physics concepts.

Programming with Blockly

Included in SPARKvue 4 and Capstone 2, Blockly offers students a new world of experimental opportunities that focus on computational thinking, data visualization, and sensor inquiry. As they execute their code, students can visualize their data using real-time graphical displays that assist with data visualization.

Simple Machines Engineering Kit

This kit gives students the tools to develop realistic systems, while actively learning about torque, gears, levers, pulleys, and more.

Modular Circuits

Quiet the chaos of circuit lessons with the addition of a wireless kit that reconciles variations between textbook circuit models and real-life circuits. To electrically connect two modules, students insert a jumper clip, which emphasizes that an electrical connection has been made. These hands-on circuit tools bridge learning gaps and reduce the structural complexity of traditional circuit kits to improve learning outcomes.

EcoZone System

PASCO’s EcoZone System is designed to help students model and understand the complex interactions within, and among, different ecosystems. The three clear acrylic EcoChambers are specially designed to accommodate PASCO sensors, making qualitative and quantitative measurements as easy as observing.

Engineering Design with Structures

Awaken your students’ inner engineers with these design-based Structure Systems. PASCO’s realistic structures range in complexity from single trusses to dynamic kits, enabling educators to tailor the activity’s difficulty as needed. Create a simple design challenge, such as creating a stable bridge, or challenge students with structural requirements they can test using Load Cells.

STEM Modules: Engineering Challenges

Each of these discrete modules challenges students to combine science, technology, engineering, and math concepts in pursuit of a solution to the identified challenge. Each module:

Is guided by the national standards
Incorporates a problem-based learning approach, emphasizing inquiry
Incorporates both independent and collaborative work
Includes both formative and summative assessments
Features an engineering design challenge as the culminating project

Each module is centered around an open-ended engineering challenge that invites students to design, construct, and implement a realistic solution. These challenges are based on fundamental science phenomena and simulate realistic problems that a modern engineer may encounter, with similar design constraints.