MakerState STEM Camp

STEM Education
STEM is an abbreviation that stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM education is designed as a transcending and interdisciplinary approach to these four classic disciplines. Instead of teaching each separately, STEM education draws on all four disciplines, creating an applied teaching method. This provides students with the opportunity to connect the classroom, community and the wider world through addressing real-world lessons, and solving them through STEM education. This manner of teaching stimulates the student to develop skills in critical thinking, analytic thinking and problem solving.

Students as Persistent Problem Solvers
What kids learn is important but how well they can problem solve will determine their future. Our kids’ success in the 21st Century economy increasingly depends on their proficiencies in STEM skills of problem solving and critical thinking:

• 80% of jobs in the next decade will require technical skills
• STEM jobs are growing at two times the rate as jobs in other fields
• 15 of 20 of the fast growing U.S. jobs will require math or science skills

We’re supporting a new kind of learning where STEM, coding and core academics are no longer separate but combined for student engagment and success.

Project Based Learning
Our students apply and show their learning in interdisciplinary subject areas through computational thinking (CT) and computer science (CS) based projects. Our students apply new skills in multifaceted ways with hands-on opportunities to think critically, solve problems, and develop important academic skills like written and verbal communication, planning, research. Important meta-skills developed include self-sufficiency, teamwork, goal-setting, and internet safety and literacy. These skills will support student success throughout their K-12 and college academic careers as well as in their personal and professional lives. Our projects focus on CT/CS-based:

• Simulations of real-word skills, knowledge, challenges, and phenomena​
• Experiments in, and investigations of, real-world phenomena
• Creation of unique applications that allow students to engage in and practice new skills