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Summer STEM: 10 Ideas for Fun in the Pool

Are you staying cool in the pool this summer? Take advantage of those long summer days at the pool by adding some fun STEM challenges! Read on to learn how to turn play into learning including 10 ideas for STEM at the pool.

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How to Launch a Weather Balloon: Ultimate STEM Challenge

Take your students on an unforgettable journey to the stratosphere! What can be more exciting than launching a balloon to the edge of space and seeing footage of the Earth from above? A weather balloon project (also known as High Altitude Balloon or HAB) involves designing a payload and using a helium balloon to send an experiment up to 100,000 feet into the stratosphere! 

Based on three years of successful weather balloon experience with over 300 middle school students, we created a full guide that helps students design a payload, select an experiment, launch, and recover the balloon from a 100,000-foot journey to the edge of space!

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Top 35 Amazing STEM Books for Kids

Summer is the perfect time to read books for your enjoyment, but that doesn’t mean the books you read should not have educational value. Books can provide new perspectives or set new aspirations! Harness the possibilities of the world books open to readers by indulging in STEM books. Whether you will be reading to little ones, recommending books for teens, or diving into books as an adult, there are a multitude of STEM books on the market to suit any interest. We listed some of our favorite STEM books and book series below for you to read this summer or any time of the year.

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Top 10 STEM Space Activities

Ready to launch your students into some space STEM activities? Read on to explore our top space-themed STEM activities. These activities are categorized into our 3 stages of STEM to fit different learning levels. 

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Must Haves for a STEM Lab

It’s a new year and you likely have new goals, grant money to spend, or maybe just a renewed enthusiasm for inspiring and instructing young minds! Whatever the case, there has never been a better time to gear up your classroom or home with the latest and greatest STEM gadgets and tools. We are have compiled a list of “must haves” to enhance your STEM space! 

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Solar Eclipse Party and Activities

We have put together some activity suggestions, tips, resources, and an event planning guide to make the most of a Solar Eclipse happening near you! We also have a FREE solar eclipse paper circuit lesson in our STEM Explorer Lesson Library!

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Inspire with 3D Printed Rockets

Inspiring kids to pursue their dreams in STEM has been our main goal with Vivify. There are now so many resources available to motivate students with hands-on STEM experiences, but how do you find the best ones? We had a chance meeting with the founder and CEO of RocketEd and are blown away by his passion for STEM education and reaching every student through the awe-inspiring wonder of model rocketry!Read on for our interview with Sam Pedrotty of RocketEd to learn about his wonderful company, FREE resources, and great products to use in your home, classroom, or program.

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The Best STEM Challenge Ever

Join us as we give you all the details about our popular Space Lander STEM Challenge and link up with some other great STEM educators sharing the BEST STEM CHALLENGE EVER!

Teachers love the Space Lander STEM challenge because the students are completely engaged. Students not only learn, but deeply understand the engineering design process, key science concept, and math standards all while improving their soft skills involved in teamwork.

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Earth Day STEM and a FREEBIE!

Earth Day is a great opportunity to combine STEM with environmental awareness! Today’s students will be entrusted with preserving our planet for future generations. Industrialization, population growth, oil spills and other dangers threaten the safety of our home. Learning the science of plant growth and other critical functions of life here on Earth provides the foundation for engineering and technology developments that may save our planet.

This Earth Day, we challenge you to join us in giving kids hands-on STEM challenges that allows them to plant, design, and rescue. Find a freebie at the end of this post for you and your kids to enjoy too!

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Not all STEM is Equal: 3 Stages of STEM Education

STEM education is sweeping the nation. From robotics competitions to coding games, school districts are scrambling to provide STEM programs while teachers sift through thousands of Pinterest pins in search of quality activities. We need further clarification to distinguish these levels in STEM education. To help guide educators and administrators, we propose the following 3 stages of STEM Education. 

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Fall and Halloween STEM

Halloween is almost here, and we have just the thing to celebrate with your kids and classroom! ...an engineering challenge is my favorite way to immerse kids in a hands-on STEM learning environment throughout the fall season

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