Friday, August 3, 2018

Give Your Child a Special Enrichment Experience - With STEM!

We all want to give our children special experiences that are fun and also give them an edge in school and in life.  You can accomplish both these goals by seeking out enrichment STEM afterschool programs and camps.  When you think back to their childhood, or even your own, it is easy to remember the joy in playing with blocks, legos, and robots.  You can just see the gears in the mind turning as kids explore, play, and try to build things.  Everyone is born as an engineer, but can we give them extra experiences as they grow older to foster this interest in talent?  YES! 

Science, Technology, Mathematics, and Engineering (STEM) are disciplines of interests for many children.  Unfortunately, traditional enrichment offerings in school have been more for athletics, music, or for reading help.  As the education community has awoken to the tremendous interest in STEM over the last few years, this is changing.  Finally, offerings are appearing that reach these students, and give them an opportunity to develop their area of skill and interest.  Imagine a chance for the student who is currently sitting in a room, wishing they had a chance to interact with peers who share their interest.  STEM camps, after school programs, and special events are now here for those students!



One such hot area of the STEM is robotics.  Robotics is an incredible blend of electrical and mechanical engineering, combined with computer science.  Current focus areas in robotics include developing robots to do work that is dangerous for people and developing programming with artificial intelligence.  A student who is skilled in these areas will be able to go on and make a contribution to many current and important fields.  We know many kids have these aptitudes, and just need a great environment where they can explore and find their passion.

When evaluating robotics programs, make sure to look for characteristics of a high-quality learning experience.  This includes hands-on opportunities where students manipulate and work with robotic parts.  Additionally, students must be provided with coding and programming opportunities.  With robots becoming more and more common in all areas of manufacturing, the ability to code and work with robots is a much-needed skill that will help students be marketable 21st-century problem solvers.  It is key for students to go through the entire design process that includes designing, prototype, testing, and experimenting.  Future engineers and computer experts need extra opportunities in this realm.   A robotics after school program is exactly the kind of fun yet valuable experience that parents seek for their students.

In addition to the specific engineering knowledge developed in STEM enrichment programs, students learn many 21st century skills that will help them in school and in life.  STEM projects always require great communication and problem-solving skills.  Students learn to work together and to take leadership roles in different parts of the projects.   Group problem solving is a transferable skill that will help students become good group members, employees, or entrepreneurs as they grow up.  The nature of STEM challenges means students are not focused on memorizing answers, but on working to solve problems through calculation, hypothesis, and testing.  Imagine an opportunity to develop these kinds of skills, through having a great time!

Excellent new opportunities for this type of exciting enrichment are likely to be coming to your area now.  For example, a well-known tutoring company, MindsAhead Academy, has built a strong series of afterschool enrichment programs.  Their Robominds afterschool program is an engaging robotics exploration where students work with the Mindstorms robotics program.  Kids get to try amazing robotics challenges, learn vocabulary, experiment with coding, and solve challenges using robots!  Seeking out opportunities like this is a great idea for your child who loves building things, machines, or computer science. 


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