TAME Clubs

A TAME Club is an enrichment program that offers activities and curriculum to support students interested in exploring STEM under the guidance of adult sponsors and student leaders.

TAME Clubs are typically sponsored by teachers, librarians, administrators, parents, or community partners and are often hosted on a school campus. Clubs meet regularly and program activities are designed to increase student skills, awareness of STEM careers and access to role models. TAME volunteers from local universities and corporations support the clubs and serve as role models. Participants compete in the TAME’s exclusive Divisional and State STEM Competitions (students must be active members of a registered TAME Club to compete) and are eligible to apply for TAME Scholarships.

Once registered, teachers and student members have access to:

• Invitations to TAME STEM Competitions for 6-12 graders
• Thousands of hands-on STEM activities and teaching resources
• Free professional development at events like TAMU’s Teacher Summit, NEED, etc.
• Exclusive TAME Scholarships
• TAME’s Alumni Network to help students find jobs after graduation

TAME Clubs must:

• Have an adult sponsor (student leaders are optional)
• Have at least eight registered students
• Include students in grades K-12
• Have regularly scheduled meetings related to STEM subjects
• Meetings for the 2020-21 year may be virtual or socially distant in-person with precautions  such as masks, face shields, hand washing, hand sanitizer, etc.
• Register annually to renew membership

The TAME Club program is flexible. We understand that there is no “one-size-fits-all” format that will work for students in different communities around Texas. See our TAME Club Sponsor Guide: Best Practices & Recipes for a Great TAME Club Meeting for ideas.

TAME does not require clubs to meet a certain number of times or use a particular format. Some TAME Clubs meet several times a week, some meet a few times a semester. Because many students ride the bus and aren’t able to stay after school, some clubs meet during lunch or homeroom, or even count class time toward the club meetings.

Club Sponsors do not need to report back to TAME about their meetings, although we love to hear about fun and interesting STEM projects and often feature photos on TAME’s Facebook and Twitter to inspire other clubs.

Here are some of the many activities TAME Clubs have taken on in recent years:

• Divide the club into teams to practice Engineering Design Challenges from past STEM Competitions
• Invite local STEM professionals and college students to the club as guest speakers
• Host a Family STEM Event anchored by a visit from the Trailblazer, TAME’s mobile STEM museum
• Gamify your prep for STEM Competitions with TAME’s Kahoot quizzes, official practice tests, and design challenges
• Build a Little Free Library based off a famous science fiction character
• Design, build, and race solar cars, then mentor other local schools to start their own programs
• Design, build, and compete with rockets, then visit science fairs to share your work
• Partner with a local library, museum, or university to learn coding, 3D printing, and more
• Challenge students grades 6-12 to mentor elementary-age students by running an informal STEM Competition
• Host an engineering challenge in an unusual setting, like designing rafts to float on a swimming pool
• Organize a STEAM art project day to help students submit artwork for the annual T-Shirt Design Contest
• Help your local theatre with projects like designing a replica steam engine prop with working lights and steam
• Volunteer with eco-cleanup days for local parks or run a recycling club
• Learn how to do water quality monitoring or run environmental safety tests on local rivers
• Take the whole club on a field trip to a local university to tour the campus
• Connect with a local STEM employer to bring students on a tour
• Offer extra credit, snacks, and help students with homework and tutoring
• Help graduating seniors apply for TAME Scholarships
• Anything and everything STEM-related that students want to explore!

Many clubs draw ideas from TAME’s curated content on Pinterest. Browse through our most popular board here, and see our STEM Resources page for more.

TAME Clubs are inclusive to all students who want to join. Because part of TAME’s mission is to promote diversity in STEM careers, we focus recruitment on young women and under-represented ethnicities. However, we welcome any student who wants to pursue their interest in STEM. Also, our Club membership is not limited to students in public school; we welcome home-schooling networks, community groups, and more.

Each TAME Club must meet the following requirements:

• Have at least 8 student participants in grades K – 12
• Have regular in-person meetings where students can strengthen skills and explore STEM with hands-on activities

To be eligible to participate in the annual STEM Competitions, TAME Clubs in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and their suburbs must meet one of the following additional criteria:

• Be located at a Title I school, where a majority of the students qualify for free/reduced meals OR
• 50% of student members must be either part of the first generation in their family to consider college or qualify for free/reduced meals

Most TAME Clubs are in a rural area or Title I school (this can be checked under NCES locale code).

As we continue TAME’s big experiment to bring more under-represented students into STEM, we remain committed to making sure TAME’s resources go first to the students who need them the most. We appreciate the efforts of TAME Club Sponsors across Texas in achieving these recruitment goals.

Yes. If neither parent/guardian has graduated from college, then you qualify. You and your siblings would be from the first generation in your family to graduate from college.

We know that some of our existing TAME Clubs won’t yet meet these requirements, and we see this as a big part of the ongoing Design Challenge. See our tips on recruiting from other successful TAME Club Sponsors: 21 Ideas for Recruiting Diverse Students into STEM Clubs.

If your club doesn’t meet the 50% requirement, what other specific strategies can we employ to reach more as-yet-underserved students, and bring them into TAME Clubs? If your club doesn’t have enough participating students, can you combine resources with other TAME clubs in your area?

This outreach gets to the heart of TAME’s mission, and your help in identifying and implementing these strategies is essential.

We encourage recruitment from all backgrounds. Seek out creative students and show them how they can be creative as young engineers. Look for students who want to make a difference and show them how they can help people with a career in STEM. Look for students who might not otherwise end up in a STEM club.

See our tips on recruiting from other successful TAME Club Sponsors: 21 Ideas for Recruiting Diverse Students into STEM Clubs:

TAME also offers posters that you can download and customize. They are designed to print well in both color and black and white so you can copy them easily and post around schools, libraries, and community centers.

Absolutely! As long as your group meets our requirements, your adult sponsor will be able to register your group as a TAME Club. To receive an invitation to participate in STEM Competitions, your club will need to meet our criteria.

Here are some of the organizations whose leaders have also registered their groups as TAME Clubs (so far):

4-H
Austin Youth River Watch
BEST Robotics
Code Wars
FIRST Robotics
Future City Competition
Generation Hope
Girl Scouts
Homeschoolers Unlimited Texas (HUT)
Junior Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE, Jr.)
Latinos in Science and Engineering (MAES)
Lunar Cave Analog Test Sites (LCATS)
Science Olympiad
Solar Car Challenge
Team Rocketry America Challenge (TARC)
Texas Prefreshman Engineering Program
Vex Robotics

Since 1976, TAME has built partnerships like these to bring as many opportunities as possible to the students of Texas. Who else do you know who would have fun at a STEM Competition? What groups in your community already have everything they need to register as a TAME Club? Encourage them to sign up today!

TAME Clubs are free to students, parents, and teachers. Learn more about what you can do to ensure our programs remain free for generations to come.

TAME Club & Student Registration typically opens in August.

The last day for TAME to Receive Student Registration is typically in late October or early November. Please see the Registration page for deadlines.

TAME Club Sponsors have the ability to log in online to see a real-time roster for the students who have registered in their club.

TAME Club Rosters

Due to privacy regulations, this information is only available to the TAME Club Sponsor.