Want lemon batteries, magnetic slime, and more great ideas? Whether you need instructions for growing stalagmites, more than 500 engineering activity ideas, or information about STEM role models, TAME curates fresh, exciting content on a range of STEM-related topics for K-12 classrooms.
COVID-19 Resources from TAME:
Tools for STEM learning in quarantine
Even as the semester is winding down and in-person summer opportunities are limited, TAME wants to encourage our students, teachers, and their families to stay focused on learning. Our latest STEM at Home and Teaching in Quarantine Pinterest boards are embedded below.
Every day, we see evidence of the importance of STEM learning. STEM professionals are playing a major role in navigating us through the pandemic and its consequences. We need scientists (and data analysts, nurses, blood technicians, material scientists, economists, science journalists, and many more we don’t yet know about) now and that need will grow over the next few decades.
We know we don’t have to tell you how important social distancing is, or how much we miss gathering in TAME Clubs and at STEM Competitions to connect and celebrate STEM achievement. We look forward to restarting TAME programs as soon as it is safe to do so. Meanwhile, the learning doesn’t stop. In fact, we’re in the middle of one of the most important lessons yet.
Want to help inspire the next generation of STEM professionals? If you have activities to share, we know our community would appreciate new ideas, too! Please send it to us via Pinterest or at programs@tame.org
Stay-at-home-STEM
Teaching in Quarantine
TAME Club Sponsor Guide:
Best Practices & Recipes for a Great TAME Club Meeting
Many Club Sponsors ask us for advice on how to structure meetings, schedules, and activities. New this year, we’re offering a guide for TAME Club Sponsors that includes timing, funding, recruitment, suggested guidelines, and 15 “recipe ideas” for fun meetings:
- past Engineering Design Challenges from Divisionals and State
- guest speaker training and questions
- STEM leadership discussions
- STEAM art project & contest
- college & scholarship workshop
- discussion on science fiction & STEM ethics, and more!
We hope these “recipes” will help you envision some of the ways that your TAME Club can help foster exploration and build a supportive network for your students.
Printable engineering workbook
STEM Club Series Design Workbook
New this year, we’re offering a free printable workbook for TAME Club Sponsors to use with students as they practice what it’s like to be an engineer.
- Includes Engineering Design Process diagram & steps
- Five Grand Challenges of Engineering facing humanity in the next 100 years
- Four blank worksheets to help students:
- Identify the problem, materials, and rules
- Brainstorm and sketch ideas
- Design solutions
- Build and test a design (What works? What doesn’t?)
- Refine the design
- Share solutions with others
- Reflect on the process and design
We hope these printable workbooks will help your TAME Club stay organized and experiment with new engineering activities throughout the year.
Digital Club Kit
Posters, Certificates, Fundraising Ideas
Now available! For the 2019-20 school year, TAME is pleased to offer a Digital Club Kit to support TAME Club Sponsors, including:
- TAME Club Sponsor Guide & Best Practices
- Community & School Administrator Guide to find support for your TAME Club
- TAME Club Presentation for Teachers
- Benefits of a TAME Club Infographic – Ana’s Story
- Club Engineering Challenge Workbook
- New easy-to-print Club Recruitment posters in English & Spanish
- Club recruitment strategies
- Family STEM Event posters in English & Spanish
- Student Participation Certificates
Competition Preparation
Practice Tests, Kahoots, Engineering Challenges
TAME appreciates the value of hard work and practice in success. At the 14 Divisional STEM Competitions that take place around the state in January or February, students compete individually in math and science, then team up in an Engineering Design Challenge to solve a real-world problem.
To help our students better prepare for our annual STEM Competitions, TAME provides practice tests, Kahoots! quizzes, past Engineering Design Challenges, and advice on competing like a scientist.
Download Practice Tests, Kahoots, & Engineering Design Challenges
TAME Pinterest
Whether you need instructions for growing stalagmites or information about STEM scholarships, visit the TAME Pinterest page. TAME staff and teachers from across the state and beyond help to keep our Pinterest boards full of fresh, exciting material on a range of STEM-related topics for K-12 classrooms.
Material is divided by subject type (math, science, engineering), by age group (K-5, middle school, high school), and/or by subject (scholarships, infographics, women in STEM).
Do you have an idea that you’d love to share with other classrooms? Please send it to us via Pinterest or at programs@tame.org
TAME Club Hall of Fame
Here are some of the many activities TAME Clubs have taken on in recent years. (See photos below!)
- 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 host a local Electrathon to 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.
