STEM Supports Social-Emotional Learning Competencies

As we close out this momentous year, we have reflected on the foundational principles of our work. We believe that every STEM program should have an embedded social-emotional component. When you place STEM skills into practically any professional context, you find a work environment in which practices like collaboration, integrity, and compromise are essential. Let’s take a quick look back at some of 2020’s student-centered supports and the ways in which they have inspired hope, resilience, and motivation during a time of great challenge and change for both teachers and students.

Statewide Design Challenge – Entrepreneurship skills are transferrable to any career field or content area. The 2020-21 Statewide Design Challenge encourages students to design a business plan and pitch for a social enterprise. Social enterprises are businesses that are changing the world for the better. Like traditional businesses they aim to make a profit, but it is what they do with their profits that sets them apart – reinvesting or donating them to create positive social change. It is business for good, and when they profit, society profits. There’s still time to participate in this challenge. Sign up here – participating schools will conduct classroom-level business plan pitch competitions, and then nominate outstanding projects to participate in a virtual Shark Tank competition in spring 2021.

CS Ed Week Coding Marathon – Our team wondered how we might keep students engaged in computer science (CS) from a distance. The CS Ed Week Coding Marathon is an experience that encourages students to think differently about CS, computational thinking (CT), and how those skills can be used to solve community problems. Students explored CS activities, unplugged and/or plugged, that encourage CT and problem solving using the core CS practices: abstraction, debugging, algorithms, decomposition, and pattern recognition. Be sure to register when this opportunity opens again in December of 2021!

STEM Essay Contest - In the changing world we now live in, it's easy to get weighed down by the negative aspects of change. Change can be difficult, especially when we don't know what awaits us. Change can also be an exciting opportunity to inspire new discoveries, ideas, values, and revelations in STEM fields. This K-12 ELA standards-aligned writing prompt encourages students to think about the positive consequences they have observed, experienced, or questioned regarding our changing world and compose an essay that argues for and supports further exploration, investment, and discovery within this area. Submissions for this contest open again in the fall of 2021!

To learn more about the student-focused STEM opportunities and additional supports for Tennessee teachers and districts, sign up for our newsletter here . We are incredibly grateful to all of you that have done so much to preserve learning throughout this challenging year. We can’t wait to join you in January with new programs, supports, and resources to help you make the most of 2021!