The Challenge:

How can you spark the creative interest of STEM in young people? What can students do to make classroom factual learning and hands-on experiences meaningful in a way that students can connect the classroom and the world outside. Can we train our students to become real world problem solvers? Often our resolve to make STEM exciting and career enticing dissolves away with reality. Often the reality of the limitations including inexperienced teachers and homeschool educators, limited time, budget constraints and space limitations interfere with the building STEM dreams in our students. One way to overcome limitations is to engage students in science competitions that are designed specifically to overcome those limitations. With competition experiences teachers and homeschool educators and their students will raise their STEM engagement level.

A Solution:

I absolutely know that STEM competitions are one of the best ways for students to express their interest, enthusiasm and talent in the various fields of STEM. Many of my former students express that involvement in science competitions was the most influential factor for them going into a STEM field. A STEM completion is an all-encompassing learning experience, not only do students apply science/math/engineering concepts to solve problems, but they also learn life lessons in organization, teamwork, goal setting and the joy of discovery. A science competition validates and rewards hard work.                                             

 Resources

Below are a list of science competitions that do not cost money to apply and do not require a lot of money or any money to do. They come with rich instructional resources for the adult supervisor.

IF YOU NEED SOME SUGGESTIONS OR HELP YOU CAN EMAIL ME

Rich

Rkurtz3@k12stemspace.com

1.      Samsung Solve for Tomorrow (Change community through STEM: 6-12, USA public ed)

https://www.samsung.com/us/solvefortomorrow/

2.      Explorovision (Imagine future Tech, k-12, any educational situation clubs etc., North America)

https://www.exploravision.org/

3.      Genes in Space (design an experiment for space station, 7-12, any educational setting, USA)

https://www.genesinspace.org/us-contest/

4.      Future City (a themed city vision competition, 6-8, any educational situation North America, international)

https://futurecity.org/

5.      Invention Convention (entrepreneur inventors, K-12, international)

https://inhub.thehenryford.org/icw/home

6.      Biomimicry Challenge (biomimetic design, 6-12, USA)

https://youthchallenge.biomimicry.org/

7.      National High School Design Competition (design around a theme, 9-12, USA)

https://www.cooperhewitt.org/design-competition/

8.      Cyberpartriot (cyber security issues, 6-12, any educational situation, clubs etc, USA)

https://www.uscyberpatriot.org/Pages/Competition/Competition-Overview.aspx

9.      TOPPS Psychology (Psychology competiton, high school students enrolled in online or in-person psychology course, international)

https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/topss/student-competition

10.   THINK (STEM research proposal, 9-12, USA)

https://think.mit.edu/

11.   Global science video competition, high school, International)

https://breakthroughjuniorchallenge.org/