We live in an ever-evolving world, powered by advancements across STEM fields. Today, STEM has become increasingly intertwined with how we live our daily lives–from how we learn, to how we work, to entertainment and more.
STEM innovations are a major force driving society forward, as we’ve most recently seen with the AI explosion that is generating a growing demand for STEM talent in the workforce. In fact, STEM employment is set to increase nearly 3x the rate of non-STEM employment by 2033.
As teachers, our job is to equip students to excel in our dynamic world–not only within the classroom, but to also empower them to build foundational skills that will help them to thrive when they enter the workforce.
As STEM talent continues to become vital, these skills are ones K-12 teachers must ensure we’re implementing in our classrooms, because introducing STEM education early on helps spark curiosity among students.
So, what can teachers do to fuel a passion for STEM among their students?
The power of project-based learning
Project-based learning (PBL) is proving itself to be a successful pedagogy–nearly half (46%) of K-12 Gen Z students say opportunities to engage with learning material in a hands-on way drive their interest, and about one-third most enjoy what they’re learning when they can make real-world connections.
PBL is an alternative to traditional rote learning methods. When applying PBL to STEM education, instead of having students listening passively to information, they actively engage in real-world problems that require them to use STEM concepts to solve complex problems. This hands-on approach allows students to develop a deeper sense of knowledge of the topic they’re learning about–they’re not just merely memorizing but also learning from its applications. For instance, in a PBL setting, students could identify lack of access to filtered water as a problem and then work together to design a sustainable water filtration system to address this challenge.
PBL helps students not only supplement theoretical knowledge but also provide a sense of purpose and applicability. It helps enhance the learning experience for students by making it enjoyable and allowing students to see the impact they can bring out into the world beyond the classroom.
When it comes to STEM, PBL plays a powerful role in tapping into students’ curiosity. STEM curriculums aren’t typically viewed as ones that power creativity, but by framing learning in terms of interesting questions or issues, PBL allows students to explore, experiment and learn these topics in a unique way that allows them to become innovators in the classroom. This process can be highly motivating, allowing students to become agents in their own learning process. The sense of ownership and pride that comes with successfully finishing a challenging project can ignite a lifetime interest in STEM.
Building the skills to power future STEM innovators
PBL helps enhance learning experiences for students by making the process more exciting and engaging, and it also allows them to develop and foster crucial skills that are necessary in our STEM-powered world.
By introducing PBL into the classroom, students are given the opportunity to work closely together on project work, which allows them to harness core skills like collaboration, clear communication, vital problem-solving abilities, creativity and perseverance. These skills are ones that empower students throughout their education journey–from K-12 and beyond–and are also essential for STEM career success. Encouraging skills like creativity in students’ developmental years empowers them to think outside of the box–a crucial competency for STEM professionals. Creativity drives innovation, and helping students to flex and build this muscle early on will allow them to enter the STEM workforce ready to drive change.
Figuring out how to implement PBL can feel overwhelming, especially if the existing curriculum doesn’t allow room for this approach. Luckily for teachers, there are a plethora of great programs, like the National Science Teaching Association and Toshiba’s ExploraVision, which offer support and resources to make PBL opportunities a reality, helping us spark a passion for STEM among our students.
Shaping STEM leaders in the classroom
As we’ve seen with AI’s rapid advancements, STEM fields are shaping the nation’s future. Today’s students are soon to become the future leaders of tomorrow. Teachers bear a responsibility to prepare them with the skills they need to thrive in their education–as well as in the workplace.
Project-based learning is a critical, and proven, means of providing students with hands-on, experiential learning that nurtures curiosity, skills and a sense of purpose. As we prepare our students to address the challenges and opportunities of the future, PBL is an integral and effective tool, fueling a lifelong passion for STEM and equipping students with the skills necessary to become strong STEM leaders.
Tami Brook, STEM School Highlands Ranch
Tami Brook is a second-grade teacher at STEM School Highlands Ranch. With six years of experience in problem-based learning, she’s dedicated to challenging students to apply their knowledge and explore innovative solutions to real-world problems.
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When you walk into a math classroom in Charleston County School District, you can feel the difference. Students aren’t just memorizing steps–they’re reasoning through problems, explaining their thinking, and debating solutions with their peers. Teachers aren’t rushing to cover content, because their clear understanding of students’ natural learning progressions allows them to spend more time exploring the why behind the math.
This cultural shift didn’t come from adopting a new curriculum or collecting more data. Instead, we transformed math education by investing deeply in our educators through OGAP (The Ongoing Assessment Project) professional learning–an approach that has reshaped not only instruction, but the confidence and professional identity of our teachers.
Why we needed a change
Charleston County serves more than 50,000 students across more than 80 schools. For years, math achievement saw small gains, but not the leaps we hoped for. Our teachers were dedicated, and we had high-quality instructional materials, but something was missing.
The gap wasn’t our teacher’s effort. It was their insight–understanding the content they taught flexibly and deeply.
Too often, instruction focused on procedures rather than understanding. Teachers could identify whether a student got a problem right or wrong, but not always why they responded the way they did. To truly help students grow, we needed a way to uncover their thinking and guide next steps more intentionally.
What makes this professional learning different
Unlike traditional PD that delivers a set of strategies to “try on Monday,” this learning model takes educators deep into how students develop mathematical ideas over time.
Across four intensive days, teachers explore research-based learning progressions in additive, multiplicative, fractional, and proportional reasoning. They examine real student work to understand how misconceptions form and what those misconceptions reveal about a learner’s thought process. It is also focused on expanding and deepening teachers’ understanding of the content they teach so they are more flexible in their thinking. Teachers appreciate that the training isn’t abstract; it’s rooted in everyday classroom realities, making it immediately meaningful.
Instead of sorting responses into right and wrong, teachers ask a more powerful question: What does this show me about how the student is reasoning?
That shift changes everything. Teachers leave with:
A stronger grasp of content
The ability to recognize error patterns
Insight into students’ conceptual gaps
Renewed confidence in their instructional decisions
The power of understanding the “why”
Our district uses conceptual math curricula, including Eureka Math², Reveal Math, and Math Nation. These “HQIM” programs emphasize reasoning, discourse, and models–exactly the kind of instruction our students need.
But conceptual materials only work when teachers understand the purpose behind them.
Before this professional learning, teachers sometimes felt unsure about lesson sequencing and the lesson intent, including cognitive complexity. Now, they understand why lessons appear in a specific order and how models support deeper understanding. It’s common to hear teachers say: “Oh, now I get why it’s written that way!” They are also much more likely to engage deeply with the mathematical models in the programs when they understand the math education research behind the learning progressions that curriculum developers use to design the content.
That insight helps them stay committed to conceptual instruction even when students struggle, shifting the focus from “Did they get it?” to “How are they thinking about it?”
Transforming district culture
The changes go far beyond individual classrooms.
We run multiple sessions of this professional learning each year, and they fill within days. Teachers return to their PLCs energized, bringing exit tickets, student work, and new questions to analyze together.
We also invite instructional coaches and principals to attend. This builds a shared professional language and strengthens communication across the system. The consistency it creates is particularly powerful for new teachers who are still building confidence in their instructional decision-making.
The result?
Teachers now invite feedback.
Coaches feel like instructional partners, not evaluators.
Everyone is rowing in the same direction.
This shared understanding has become one of the most transformative parts of our district’s math journey.
Results we can see
In the past five years, Charleston County’s math scores have climbed roughly 10 percentage points. But the most meaningful growth is happening inside classrooms:
Students are reasoning more deeply.
Teachers demonstrate stronger content knowledge and efficacy in using math models.
PLC conversations focus on evidence of student thinking.
Instruction is more intentional and responsive.
Teachers are also the first to tell you whether PD is worth their time…and our teachers are asking for more. Many return to complete a second or third strand, and sometimes all four. We even have educators take the same strand more than once just to pick up on something they may have missed the first time. The desire to deepen their expertise shows just how impactful this learning has been. Participants also find it powerful to engage in a room where the collective experience spans multiple grade levels. This structure supports our goal of strengthening vertical alignment across the district.
Prioritizing professional learning that works
When professional learning builds teacher expertise rather than compliance, everything changes. This approach doesn’t tell teachers what to teach; it helps them understand how students learn.
And once teachers gain that insight, classrooms shift. Conversations deepen. Confidence grows. Students stop memorizing math and start truly understanding it.
Jason Aldridge, Charleston County School District
Jason Aldridge is the District Senior Math Coordinator – K-12, Charleston County School District (SC).
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Tera Johnson-Swartz, a 45-year-old Castle Rock woman who taught at STEM School Highlands Ranch, was originally charged with second-degree kidnapping and unlawful electronic sexual communication, both felonies, as well as contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor. Her employment at the school ended on Feb. 14, 2025.
That case was dismissed in May 2025, and a new case was opened shortly after, Douglas County court records show.
“The old case was dropped after new information came to light,” 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office spokesperson Tom Mustin said in an email to The Denver Post.
Johnson-Swartz faces the same charges in the new case and three new ones: two counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust–pattern of abuse, and one count of sexual assault with a 10-year age difference, according to court records.
She was indicted on all six charges by a grand jury in May 2025, court documents show.
The newly added sexual assault charges are linked to several incidents between Dec. 1, 2024, and Feb. 20, 2025, where Johnson-Swartz initiated sex with a student younger than 18 years old, according to witness testimonies from the grand jury indictment. The name, age and gender of the victim were redacted from the indictment because they are a minor.
Johnson-Swartz would buy the student cigarettes and let the student “take a hit” off her marijuana pen, witnesses testified. Their relationship was discovered when the student’s phone was confiscated by their parents and the student’s mother found deleted text chains with the former teacher.
Roughly 2,400 messages, many containing sexually explicit content, were exchanged between the two in the three weeks prior, according to court documents. At one point, Johnson-Swartz called the text thread a string of “1,000,000,000 ways to get (her) fired/arrested/killed.”
An arrest warrant was issued for Johnson-Swartz on the same day she was indicted by the grand jury, and she was brought into custody.
She is next scheduled to appear in Douglas County District Court on Jan. 21 for an arraignment hearing, according to court records.
BATON ROUGE, La. —About two dozen second graders sat on the carpet at the front of Jacquelyn Anthony’s classroom, reviewing how to make tens. “Two needs eight!” the students yelled out together. “Six needs four!”
“The numbers may get a little trickier,” Anthony told them next. “But remember, the numbers we need to make 10 are still there.” The students then turned confidently to bigger calculations: Forty-six needs four ones to make a new number divisible by 10; 128 needs two to make 13 tens.
At the end of the hour, the second graders slung on their backpacks, gathered their Chromebooks and lined up at the door before heading to English and social studies class across the hall. While most schools wait until middle school to transition students from one class to another, kids at Louisiana’s Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts do so starting at age 6 or 7. It’s part of a strategy known as departmentalizing, or platooning.
Anthony, rather than teaching all four core subjects, specializes in math. The school’s new facility, built in 2025, was designed with departmentalizing in mind: The classrooms have huge glass windows, so teachers can see their next class preparing to line up in the hallway.
“Teaching today is so different than it was a long time ago, and there are so many demands on them. And the demand to be an expert in your content area is very high,” said Sydney Hebert, magnet site coordinator for the art-focused public school in the East Baton Rouge Parish school district. “We want to make sure that our teachers are experts in what they’re teaching so that they can do a good job of teaching it to the kids.”
As schools contend with a decades-long slump in math scores — exacerbated by the pandemic — some are turning to this classroom strategy even for very young students. In recent years, more elementary schools have opted to departmentalize some grade levels in an attempt to boost academic achievement. The share of fourth and fifth grade classrooms operating on this schedule has doubled since the year 2000, from 15 percent to 30 percent in 2021. Often, that means educators will specialize in one or two subjects at most, such as fourth grade English language arts and social studies, or fifth grade math and science. The theory is that teachers who specialize will be more familiar with the content and better able to teach it.
That may be particularly important for math: Studies have shown that some early elementary school teachers experience anxiety about the subject and question their ability to teach it. Educators also say that the curriculum and standards for math and English in the early grades are changing rapidly in some districts and have become more complicated over time. In a departmentalized setup, it’s also far less likely that math instruction will get shortchanged by an educator who prefers spending time on other subjects.
Jacquelyn Anthony teaches second grade students math at Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts on Dec. 9, 2025, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Credit: Annie Flanagan for The Hechinger Report
But while some schools swear by this model, the research on it is mixed.
One prominent 2018 study on the practice in Houston public schools found it had a negative effect on test scores, behavior and attendance. The study doesn’t explain why that was the case, but the researcher said it could be because teachers on this schedule spend less time with individual students.
Another study published in 2024 analyzing Massachusetts schools had different outcomes: Researchers found moderate gains in academic achievement for ELA and a significant boost to science scores for students in departmentalized classes. The results in math, however, showed few gains.
Generally, teachers specialize in the subject they are most comfortable teaching. When a school departmentalizes for the first time, principals typically look at each educator’s test score data over time to determine whether they should specialize in math or reading.
“There are some arguments that, at least if it’s someone who likes the subject, who is passionate about the subject, you have a greater chance of them doing a better job of delivering instruction,” said Latrenda Knighten, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “But you’ll find mixed reviews.”
Yet there are a few reasons why the strategy is typically reserved for students in older grades, according to school leaders: Spending all day with one teacher increases the bond between the teacher and student, which is important for younger children. In Baton Rouge, Anthony teaches 50 students throughout the day instead of the same 25 students all day.
“Teachers want to get to know their students,” said Dennis Willingham, superintendent of Walker County Schools in Alabama. The district departmentalized some fifth grade classrooms decades ago, but recently added third and fourth grade classes on this schedule. “You tend to see less departmentalization below third grade because of the nurturing element.”
It’s also generally more challenging for young students to quickly change classrooms, even for electives, which means lost instructional time. Smaller elementary schools may also struggle to hire enough teachers to schedule all of them on a departmentalized setup.
But increasingly, schools that are satisfied with this approach for older grade levels are trying it out with their younger grades, too.
After the pandemic, the San Tan Heights Elementary School in Arizona changed its curriculum to one that was more rigorous, and it became harder for the third grade educators to master the standards of all four subject areas, said Henry Saylor-Scheetz, principal at the time.
He proposed that third graders be taught by separate math, English language arts and reading teachers. “I told them, let’s try it for a semester. If it doesn’t work at the end of the year, we’ll go back,” Saylor-Scheetz said.
Ten days into the experiment, teachers told him they never wanted to return to the old schedule. In the subsequent years, the school added more classrooms on this model until, by 2023, all K-8 students were departmentalized. For the last few years, teacher retention at the school was 95 percent, according to Saylor-Scheetz.
Saylor-Scheetz, who last year became principal of a nearby middle school, credited the change for helping the school improve from a C rating on its state report card — a rating it had stagnated at every year since 2018 — to a B rating as of 2022. Since then, more schools in his Arizona school district have shifted to this schedule.
“I’d love to see this become something we do as a nation, but it is a paradigm shift,” Saylor-Scheetz said. “There’s merit in doing it, but there has to be a commitment to it.”
At Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts, students in first through third grades have two partner teachers, one for math and science and another for ELA and social studies. The school has been operating on this schedule for third through fifth grade students for more than a decade. Eight years ago, its leaders decided to try it for first and second grade students, too, and were pleased with the results.
On a December morning at the school, young students talked quietly with each other in the hall as they lined up to go from math class to English language arts. All told, the switch took less than five minutes. “We’re at the end of the second nine weeks, so we’ve had a lot of practice,” said GiGi Boudreaux, the assistant principal.
The strategy has not always been successful, though.
During the pandemic, administrators also attempted to departmentalize its kindergarten classes. It didn’t work as they’d hoped: It was a challenge to get the 5-year-olds to quickly change classes and focus on classwork again once they did. Parents also didn’t like it. The school then tried moving teachers from classroom to classroom instead of moving students, but the educators hated it.
“It was too much, so we didn’t do it after that,” said Hebert.
The Baton Rouge school doesn’t have comparison data to show that students perform better in a departmentalized setup, but most educators in the school prefer it, Hebert said. Third grade test scores from 2015 — before the school departmentalized its younger grade levels — showed 73 percent scored “advanced” and “mastery” level on the state ELA test, and 56 percent scored advanced or mastery on the math test. In 2025, 80 percent of third grade students scored advanced or mastery in ELA and 55 percent in math.
“I know that the teachers like it better, and the kids have adapted to it,” Hebert said.
Teachers meet weekly with their partner teachers and grade-level counterparts to discuss their classes and progress on the state standards. Once a quarter, all of the math teachers across the grades meet to talk about strategies and student performance.
At Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona, departmentalizing some classrooms has helped reduce teacher turnover, said Superintendent Curtis Finch, particularly for early career educators, who can find it challenging to master the content and standards of all four subjects.
“If you’re not confident in your subject, then you don’t have good examples off the top of your head. You can’t control the room, can’t pull the students in,” Finch said.
Jacquelyn Anthony specializes in second grade math and science at the Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts, a public elementary school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Credit: Annie Flanagan for The Hechinger Report
There are drawbacks though, Finch acknowledged. In a self-contained classroom, teachers can more easily integrate their different lessons, so that a math lesson might refer back to a topic covered in reading.
And even though Anthony, the second grade math and science teacher in Baton Rouge, loves teaching math, she also misses the extra time she could spend with each student when she had the same 25 children in her class all day for the entire school year.
“It was a joy for me to be self-contained and to build that little family,” Anthony said. “I think the social emotional needs of students are best met in that type of environment. But being solely a math teacher, I do get to just dig in and focus on the nuance of the content.”
For Anthony’s partner teacher across the hall, Holley McArthur, teaching 50 students ELA and social studies is easier than having to teach 25 students math.
“This is my thing: reading books, comprehending and finding answers, meeting their goals,” said McArthur, who has taught in both kinds of classrooms over three decades in education.
While McArthur’s kids were at recess this mid-December day, the veteran teacher was grading their reading worksheets. A new student had transferred in from out of state midyear, and she was still evaluating his reading skills.
“I think you still get to know the kids, even if you just have them for three hours a day, because I’m not doing the hard math with them.”
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Ever since Grace Kennedy met Quinn in May, the teenager’s goal has been to fatten the Hereford calf up — but not too much, not if she wants to auction it off at this month’s National Western Stock Show in Denver.
Quinn, who is about a year-and-a-half old, weighed 460 pounds when Grace won the animal from the Stock Show’s Catch-A-Calf program. The calf weighed about 1,250 pounds as of early December.
“They just want a good-looking carcass,” Grace, who lives just outside of Morrison, said of the judges who will determine how well she did in raising Quinn for beef.
The 17-year-old is just one of Colorado’s 4-H youth members who will attend the Stock Show in hopes of making a sale. Teenagers from across the state will come to Denver to auction off cattle, goats and other livestock, with the goal of earning money for college, first cars or to reinvest in their farming endeavors.
4-H student Grace Kennedy, 17, tries to convince her one-year-old steer, Quinn, to continue his walk around the property on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Morrison, Colo. (Photo by Timothy Hurst/The Denver Post)
The Stock Show began Saturday and will run through Jan. 25.
“Being from Colorado, I feel like it would be really cool making a sale in a national show in your state,” 15-year-old Ty Weathers said.
Ty, who lives on a cattle ranch outside of Yuma in northeastern Colorado, has been showing cows since he was about 7 years old. He will show a steer named Theodore at the Stock Show this year, and he hopes to sell the animal to earn money for a car.
Unlike Grace, who received Quinn through the Catch-A-Calf program, which requires participants to sell their calves during the Stock Show, there’s no guarantee Ty will make a sale.
“I like winning,” Ty said, referring to his hope he’ll be able to auction Theodore off for the highest price. “I’ve grown up in it, so it’s just a part of life.”
Zemery Weber, who lives in Gill in Weld County, started showing goats when she was 8 years old to earn money, but this is her first time doing so at the Stock Show.
“I got a goat this year that seems to be pretty good,” the 14-year-old said. “I’m excited, but I’m also nervous because it’s my first time.”
Zemery will show a goat named Nemo. She plans to save part of the money she earns from selling the goat for meat for her first car and college.
Zemery Weber, 14, leads her goat, Nemo, outside of a barn at her mother’s home near Gill, Colo., on Dec. 15, 2025. Weber plans to show the goats at the National Western Stock Show. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
“It has helped me become the person that I am,” Zemery said of showing goats. “It is a very good experience for students to have and kids to have to learn responsibility and reliability.”
Showing animals is just one way students can participate in the Stock Show.
In the Front Range, county 4-H programs — which have youth participate in agricultural, STEM and other projects — also put on a field trip for elementary school students to visit the show so they can learn about animals and where their food comes from, said Josey Pukrop, a 4-H youth development specialist with the Colorado State University Extension in Jefferson County.
Last year, about 12,000 children participated in the field trip, she said.
4-H has been operating nationally for more than 120 years, through it, children participate in programs that include showing livestock, gardening and building robots. The youth program is largely funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, according to the agency’s website.
More than 100,000 Colorado students participate in 4-H via community clubs and other programming, said Michael Compton, the state 4-H program director at the CSU Extension.
Like Ty, Grace’s family is in the cattle business, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that she began to take an interest and dream of owning her own ranch someday.
Grace’s foray into cows began when the dance studio she attended closed because of COVID-19 in 2020. Grace, in search of a new hobby, got into horses and trail riding with her father.
4-H student Grace Kennedy, 17, leads her one-year-old steer, Quinn, around the property as training for being shown at the National Western Stock Show next month, on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Morrison, Colo. (Photo by Timothy Hurst/The Denver Post)
Soon after, she took an interest in cows and worked on her grandfather’s cattle ranch in South Dakota during the summer. Grace’s parents have their own herd near Morrison, and the teenager has started breeding and raising her own cattle.
“Animals are the coolest things,” Grace said. “They are here to teach us something, to teach us life qualities. They’re peaceful.”
Grace has been a member of 4-H for six years, showing cattle for four.
She is participating in the Stock Show’s Catch-A-Calf program, which loaned her a calf so she can learn cattle management.
The Catch-A-Calf program started in 1935 and is open to teens ages 14 to 18 who live in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming, according to the Stock Show’s website.
“Sometimes it’s kids that haven’t raised these animals before,” Pukrop said.
Zemery Weber, 14, cleans the pens for her goats, Theo, left, and Nemo, in a barn at her mother’s home near Gill, Colo., on Dec. 15, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Teens participating in the program have to rope a calf, feed it and return the cow to the next Stock Show to be judged on showmanship and carcass quality. The program’s Grand and Reserve Grand Champions get to sell their steers at an auction held on the final Friday of the Stock Show, according to the website.
The program is about “taking accountability and staying on track with your animal and really learning what goes behind their feed and all the math,” said Miranda Leatherman, a 15-year-old participant from Arvada.
By participating in the Catch-A-Calf program, Grace and Miranda had to send monthly reports to sponsors on their steers’ progress and track their weight and how much they are fed.
Grace doesn’t know how much Quinn will sell for, but if she doesn’t win and make it to auction, the calf will still be sold — just for a lower price.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice,” she said.
Grace plans to use any earnings from Quinn’s sale to cover expenses of his upkeep, such as grain and veterinary bills. Anything left over is profit, she said.
“It was a cool opportunity,” she said. “It was a way to get more involved. It was a great way to strengthen this project I have been doing.”
STEM workforce shortages are a well-known global issue. With demand set to rise by nearly 11 percent in the next decade, today’s students are the solution. They will be the ones to make the next big discoveries, solve the next great challenges, and make the world a better place.
Unfortunately, many students don’t see themselves as part of that picture.
When students struggle in math and science, many come to believe they simply aren’t “STEM people.” While it’s common to hear this phrase in the classroom, a perceived inability in STEM can become a gatekeeper that stops students from pursuing STEM careers and alters the entire trajectory of their lives. Because of this, educators must confront negative STEM identities head on.
One promising approach is to teach decision-making and critical thinking directly within STEM classrooms, equipping students with the durable skills essential for future careers and the mindset that they can decide on a STEM career for themselves.
Teaching decision-making
Many educators assume this strategy requires a full curriculum overhaul. Rather, decision-making can be taught by weaving decision science theories and concepts into existing lesson plans. This teaching and learning of skillful judgment formation and decision-making is called Decision Education.
There are four main learning domains of Decision Education as outlined in the Decision Education K-12 Learning Standards: thinking probabilistically, valuing and applying rationality, recognizing and resisting cognitive biases, and structuring decisions. Taken together, these skills, among other things, help students gather and assess information, consider different perspectives, evaluate risks and apply knowledge in real-world scenarios.
The intersection of Decision Education and STEM
Decision Education touches on many of the core skills that STEM requires, such as applying a scientific mindset, collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking. This approach opens new pathways for students to engage with STEM in ways that align with their interests, strengths, and learning styles.
Decision Education hones the durable skills students need to succeed both in and out of the STEM classroom. For example, “weight-and-rate” tables can help high school students evaluate college decisions by comparing elements like tuition, academic programs, and distance from home. While the content in this exercise is personalized and practical for each student, it’s grounded in analytical thinking, helping them learn to follow a structured decision process, think probabilistically, recognize cognitive biases, and apply rational reasoning.
These same decision-making skills mirror the core practices of STEM. Math, science, and engineering require students to weigh variables, assess risk, and model potential outcomes. While those concepts may feel abstract within the context of STEM, applying them to real-life choices helps students see these skills as powerful tools for navigating uncertainty in their daily lives.
Decision Education also strengthens cognitive flexibility, helping students recognize biases, question assumptions, and consider different perspectives. Building these habits is crucial for scientific thinking, where testing hypotheses, evaluating evidence objectively, and revising conclusions based on new data are all part of the process. The scientific method itself applies several core Decision Education concepts.
As students build critical thinking and collaboration skills, they also deepen their self-awareness, which can be transformative for those who do not see themselves as “STEM people.” For example, a student drawn to literacy might find it helpful to reimagine math and science as languages built on patterns, symbols, and structured communication. By connecting STEM to existing strengths, educators can help reshape perceptions and unlock potential.
Adopting new strategies
As educators seek to develop or enhance STEM education and cultures in their schools, districts and administrators must consider teacher training and support.
High-quality professional development programs are an effective way to help teachers hone the durable skills they aim to cultivate in their students. Effective training also creates space for educators to reflect on how unconscious biases might shape their perceptions of who belongs in advanced STEM coursework. Addressing these patterns allows teachers to see students more clearly, strengthen empathy, and create deeper connections in the classroom.
When educators come together to make STEM more engaging and accessible, they do more than teach content: they rewrite the narrative about who can succeed in STEM. By integrating Decision Education as a skill-building bridge between STEM and students’ everyday lives, educators can foster confidence, curiosity, and a sense of belonging, which helps learners build their own STEM identity, keeping them invested and motivated to learn. While not every student will ultimately pursue a career in STEM, they can leave the classroom with stronger critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills that will serve them for life.
Creating that kind of learning environment takes intention, shared commitment, and a belief that every student deserves meaningful access to and engagement with STEM. But when the opportunity arises, the right decision is clear–and every school has the power to make it.
Mary Call Blanusa, Alliance for Decision Education
Mary Call Blanusa is the Director of Public Policy and Partnerships at the Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit organization catalyzing a transformative movement to empower students with the skills and dispositions for making better decisions.
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Mary Call Blanusa, Alliance for Decision Education
Great teaching is built on the power of storytelling and research shows that narrative- led instruction improves comprehension and information retention. But why is storytelling so powerful in the classroom and how can educators harness 3D technology to amplify its impact?
The Power of Narrative
Stories engage us because they provide context and meaning. When students encounter facts on their own they may struggle to understand. But when presented as part of a narrative, they can make a deeper connection.
Immersive storytelling strengthens this impact by placing learners inside a story. When students participate actively in their learning rather than simply receiving information, they experience emotion and build empathy. This in turn boosts comprehension, critical thinking and even retention. This is especially true in subjects such as history, literature and science where students benefit from adopting different viewpoints or seeing abstract ideas in context.
Augmented Reality Storytelling
3D tools such as Discovery Education’s Augmented Reality (AR) app Sandbox transform narrative learning by allowing students to build and explore their own immersive worlds. Rather than passively reading about an event, they can recreate it. And instead of simply watching a video, they can make one themselves. This shift, from receiving information to actively creating it, turns students into powerful story makers.
Consider a lesson on Ancient Egyptian temple architecture. Traditionally, students might look at photos of Karnak or watch a short documentary. While helpful these materials lack a hands-on element. But what if students could design their own version of Ancient Egyptian, using AR?
They might begin building a temple, placing columns, sculptures and hieroglyphs based on their research. As they build, they’ll think about the story behind their creation. Who used this temple? Why was it important? What events or rituals happened here? Perhaps they’ll create a scene where a young Egyptian scribe attends a ceremonial celebration. In designing this moment they apply their knowledge of religion, history and art. These students aren’t just studying history, they’re stepping inside of it.
This is where AR truly shines. Using life-sized models, students can walk around their creations experiencing realistic scale and detail. This sensory engagement helps students to absorb not just the facts but the cultural significance.
Case Study: The Second World War
Lawford School in Essex provides a strong example of how this approach can transform learning. Students used Sandbox to explore World War II by building 3D models and crafting their own narratives.
Using a green-screen feature, they created news-style broadcasts interviewing virtual civilians and produced first-person videos showing what an air raid might have been like inside an Anderson Shelter. These student-built narratives allowed them to form emotional, personal connections to historical events, resulting in deeper understanding.
Teachers reported noticeable gains in engagement, teamwork, and critical thinking skills. The project demonstrated how 3D storytelling can turn history lessons into powerful, unforgettable experiences.
Education and Imagination
This method isn’t limited to history. Students can use 3D storytelling in AR to explore literature, model scientific processes, create virtual museums or build imaginative worlds for creative writing. The opportunities are nearly limitless, but the core idea remains the same. When students craft stories in 3D, they move from memorising content to truly understanding it.
By embracing tools like Discovery Education’s Sandbox, teachers can foster creativity, curiosity and critical thinking in ways that traditional teaching alone cannot. When students don’t just read about history but build it, and when they don’t just hear about different cultures but step into them, learning becomes an immersive experience. In the age of digital learning, 3D storytelling is the bridge between education and imagination, giving students the power to bring ideas to life.
Learn more about the entire suite of immersive learning solutions from Discovery Education here.
Far too many students enter math class expecting to fail. For them, math isn’t just a subject–it’s a source of anxiety that chips away at their confidence and makes them question their abilities. A growing conversation around math phobia is bringing this crisis into focus. A recentarticle, for example, unpacked the damage caused by the belief that “I’m just not a math person” and argued that traditional math instruction often leaves even bright, capable students feeling defeated.
When a single subject holds such sway over not just academic outcomes but a student’s sense of self and future potential, we can’t afford to treat this as business as usual. It’s not enough to explore why this is happening. We need to focus on how to fix it. And I believe the answer lies in rethinking how we teach math, aligning instruction with the way the brain actually learns.
Context first, then content
A key shortcoming of traditional math curriculum–and a major contributor to students’ fear of math–is the lack of meaningful context. Our brains rely on context to make sense of new information, yet math is often taught in isolation from how we naturally learn. The fix isn’t simply throwing in more “real-world” examples. What students truly need is context, and visual examples are one of the best ways to get there. When math concepts are presented visually, students can better grasp the structure of a problem and follow the logic behind each step, building deeper understanding and confidence along the way.
In traditional math instruction, students are often taught a new concept by being shown a procedure and then practicing it repeatedly in hopes that understanding will eventually follow. But this approach is backward. Our brains don’t learn that way, especially when it comes to math. Students need context first. Without existing schemas to draw from, they struggle to make sense of new ideas. Providing context helps them build the mental frameworks necessary for real understanding.
Why visual-first context matters
Visual-first context gives students the tools they need to truly understand math. A curriculum built around visual-first exploration allows students to have an interactive experience–poking and prodding at a problem, testing ideas, observing patterns, and discovering solutions. From there, students develop procedures organically, leading to a deeper, more complete understanding. Using visual-first curriculum activates multiple parts of the brain, creating a deeper, lasting understanding. Shifting to a math curriculum that prioritizes introducing new concepts through a visual context makes math more approachable and accessible by aligning with how the brain naturally learns.
To overcome “math phobia,” we also need to rethink the heavy emphasis on memorization in today’s math instruction. Too often, students can solve problems not because they understand the underlying concepts, but because they’ve memorized a set of steps. This approach limits growth and deeper learning. Memorization of the right answers does not lead to understanding, but understanding can lead to the right answers.
Take, for example, a third grader learning their times tables. The third grader can memorize the answers to each square on the times table along with its coordinating multipliers, but that doesn’t mean they understand multiplication. If, instead, they grasp how multiplication works–what it means–they can figure out the times tables on their own. The reverse isn’t true. Without conceptual understanding, students are limited to recall, which puts them at a disadvantage when trying to build off previous knowledge.
Learning from other subjects
To design a math curriculum that aligns with how the brain naturally learns new information, we can take cues from how other subjects are taught. In English, for example, students don’t start by memorizing grammar rules in isolation–they’re first exposed to those rules within the context of stories. Imagine asking a student to take a grammar quiz before they’ve ever read a sentence–that would seem absurd. Yet in math, we often expect students to master procedures before they’ve had any meaningful exposure to the concepts behind them.
Most other subjects are built around context. Students gain background knowledge before being expected to apply what they’ve learned. By giving students a story or a visual context for the mind to process–breaking it down and making connections–students can approach problems like a puzzle or game, instead of a dreaded exercise. Math can do the same. By adopting the contextual strategies used in other subjects, math instruction can become more intuitive and engaging, moving beyond the traditional textbook filled with equations.
Math doesn’t have to be a source of fear–it can be a source of joy, curiosity, and confidence. But only if we design it the way the brain learns: with visuals first, understanding at the center, and every student in mind. By using approaches that provide visual-first context, students can engage with math in a way that mirrors how the brain naturally learns. This shift in learning makes math more approachable and accessible for all learners.
Nigel Nisbet, Mind Education
Armed with a mathematics degree and early success as a rock musician, Nigel Nisbet moved to the US to teach mathematics, AP Physics and AP Computer Science at Van Nuys Senior High, where he pioneered integrating technology into the classroom. After a spell in district mathematics leadership at the Los Angeles Unified School District, Nisbet joined the nonprofit Mind Education team as the vice president of content creation. To continue reading about how the brain learns, visit https://www.mindeducation.org/.
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A new lab at Bucknell Elementary School is giving Fairfax County, Virginia, students hands-on experience in engineering and coding.
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Virginia Tech.-backed lab inspires Fairfax Co. elementary school students to build the future
A new lab, which opened at Bucknell Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia, is giving Fairfax County elementary school students a shot at engineering and computer programming.
And the results are as imaginative as they are innovative.
The Thinkabit Lab designs and builds prototypes for environmentally friendly inhalers, pet-washing machines, glasses with digital dashboards that monitor activity and soccer ball shooting robots. And the engineers behind this broad range of contraptions haven’t yet graduated the 5th grade.
When students arrive at the Virginia Tech-partnered lab, they often show a mix of excitement and apprehension. But about an hour later, many of them will go from little to no programming experience to building a device of their own.
“We do a lot of hands-on skills, where they’re actually building circuits that they design, and then they program them, and then we have them build automated devices,” Jim Egenrieder, director of Virginia Tech’s D.C.-area K-20 Technical Education and Workforce Development programs, told WTOP.
By the end of the class, students build or improve robotic devices that perform a task of their choosing. What they choose to build, is up to them.
Clemente Smothers, a student at Keene Mill Elementary School in West Springfield was visiting the lab on a recent day. Smothers told WTOP he decided to build a hybrid machine that could shoot a baseball or soccer ball, so players can learn to field the balls.
Another student, Betty Abraham, said her idea came from a recent article she read that stated “inhalers cause pollution.”
“We want to create an inhaler that doesn’t cause as much pollution,” Abraham told her teacher.
Abraham then described her prototype, which she planned to build with cardboard, small electric motors and LEDs.
“This is a micro dose of project-based learning where they get to decide what they want to create, and we facilitate it,” Egenrieder said. “We try to never say ‘no’ unless safety is involved, and that’s freedom that students don’t often have in their daily lives.”
Students have about 35 minutes to complete their inventions.
“If you are not done, and most of them see that as failure, I make sure that I tell them it’s part of the engineering and design process,” said teacher Jessica Ittayem, a STEM specialist at Bucknell Elementary. “If you didn’t have enough time communicate to us, what if you had three more days? How would this look? How would it function?”
She said parents often report trips to Home Depot, so their children can finish their prototypes at home.
Before diving into hands-on learning, students receive a brief lecture on programming and engineering basics and are asked to reflect on their values and interests.
Their first task: program a miniature traffic light using green, yellow and red LEDs, a breadboard, resistors and a computer. Once they grasp the basics, they can control how quickly the lights change — sometimes so fast that all three appear lit to the human eye, though a phone camera reveals they’re blinking.
“We had some problems at first,” said student Leanna Mollik. “It’s really fun, and it can determine your career in the future.”
She told WTOP this is one of her favorite classes.
After the stoplight, students learn to program a servo and motor before starting their own projects.
“They leave saying, ‘That was more fun than I thought it would be. This is the best field trip we’ve ever had. I can see myself doing this,’” Egenrieder said. “And they hopefully go home and have dinner table conversations about these new ideas.”
A lab at Bucknell Elementary School in Alexandria is giving elementary school students a shot at engineering and computer programming.
(WTOP/Luke Lukert)
WTOP/Luke Lukert
Jim Egenrieder is the director of Virginia Tech’s D.C.-area K-20 Technical Education and Workforce Development programs.
(Courtesy Virginia Tech/Craig Newcomb)
Courtesy Virginia Tech/Craig Newcomb
The Thinkabit Lab designs and builds prototypes for environmentally friendly inhalers, pet-washing machines, glasses with digital dashboards that monitor activity and soccer ball shooting robots.
(WTOP/Luke Lukert)
WTOP/Luke Lukert
He said these children, who will likely be working into the 2080s, are “going to need skills that survive the integration of artificial intelligence. And the dispositions to adapt to the many, many changes that are happening more rapidly than any other technology integration we’ve seen.”
All students at Bucknell Elementary go through the lab for an hour at least once a week, students visiting the lab from other schools get four hour windows on Tuesday and Thursday to visit the lab.
All Bucknell Elementary students visit the lab for an hour, at least once a week. Students from other schools get 4-hour windows on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Bucknell Principal Rashida Green said the most important part of the experience is the spark students feel while working on their projects.
“I think it’s when the light bulb goes off — ‘Oh my gosh, look what we were just able to code,’” she said.
Green told WTOP her own college-aged daughters went through the program at a different school.
“I just remember as a parent coming home and having conversations with them,” she said. “They were so excited about the experience. And so, you know, it definitely makes an impact on them.”
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Today’s high school students face an uncertain road ahead. AI is changing what skills are valued in the job market, and the Trump administration’s funding cuts have stalled scientific research across disciplines. Most professions seem unlikely to look the same in 10 years, let alone 50. Even students interested in STEM subjects are asking: What can my career look like, and how do I get there?
WIRED talked to five high school seniors from across the country about their interest in STEM—and how they’re making sense of the future.
These comments have been edited for length and clarity.
This Generation Needs to Be at the Forefront of AI Development
I’ve always had an interest in computer science, but my interest in AI started my junior year. The part that hooked me was how applicable it was to our daily lives. I was able to see the rise of ChatGPT and other LLMs, and how people were using them in my academic life. Some people would use it unethically on tests or assignments, but it could also be used to create practice problems. Being able to see how rapidly it’s evolving in front of me was the main reason I became interested. It’s affecting our academic life so much that it’s imperative that we’re at the forefront of how it’s being developed.
My school is a math and science academy, so I got to explore independent research related to LLMs. One of the main things I worked on was how LLMs can sometimes indirectly give out private data. Say you ask it to code something for you that requires an API key, which is sensitive information. Because it’s trained on a vast amount of data, it could have an API key in its data set, and it’ll give you code, possibly including the API key. My most accomplished research project was developing an algorithm to cut out those private pieces of data during its training, to allow it not to spew out these pieces of private data during use.
AI is such a new field that’s evolving, that if we’re able to set roots in it right now, we’d be able to see that outcome as we grow older. Understanding its security is very important to me, especially considering it’s being used almost blindly by everyone. What interests me is being at the forefront and making sure I can have some say in how my data is being used.
I’m applying to undergrad programs right now, and I’m also looking at some untraditional routes, where you go straight into an industry. Right now, in computer science, sometimes a degree is just a baseline, and if you have the skills, it’s not even necessary. So I’m looking into other options. —Laksh Patel, 17, Willowbrook, Illinois
Health Care Access Starts With Communities
My family, on both sides, has a long history of women developing neurodegenerative disease, mostly Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. So I spent my whole childhood playing doctor, treating my family matriarchs, tending to them and seeing how their diseases progressed. I became so interested in how these diseases worked, and how I could help patients like the ones in my family and my community who didn’t have access to medical resources because of their income.
I’ve really developed a love for patient care, for being able to help a person in such a debilitating time in their lives. As those female family members began to fade away and pass on, I realized how quickly these diseases spread and why they were so detrimental, especially without proper medicine. When I got into high school, I started to get oriented with research, so that I could gain a base level of understanding to bring to college to try to begin my career as early as possible and help more people.
In my classroom, students increasingly ask for relevant content. Students want to know how what they are learning in school relates to the world beyond the classroom. They want to be engaged in their learning.
In fact, the 2025-2026 Education Insights Report vividly proves that students need and want engaging learning experiences. And it’s not just students who see engagement as important. Engagement is broadly recognized as a key driver of learning and success, with 93 percent of educators agreeing that student engagement is a critical metric for understanding overall achievement. What is more, 99 percent of superintendents believe student engagement is one of the top predictors of success at school.
Creating highly engaging lesson plans that will immerse today’s tech-savvy students in learning can be a challenge, but here are two easy-to-find resources that I can turn to turbo-charge the engagement quotient of my lessons:
Virtual field trips Virtual field trips empower educators to introduce students to amazing places, new people and ideas, and remarkable experiences–without ever leaving the classroom. There are so many virtual field trips out there, but I always love the ones that Discovery Education creates with partners.
I also love the virtual tours of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Together as a class or individually, students can dive into self-guided, room-by-room tours of several exhibits and areas within the museum from a desktop or smart device. This virtual field trip does include special collections and research areas, like ancient Egypt or the deep ocean. This makes it fun and easy for teachers like me to pick and choose which tour is most relevant to a lesson.
Immersive learning resources Immersive learning content offers another way to take students to new places and connect the wider world, and universe, to the classroom. Immersive learning can be easily woven into the curriculum to enhance and provide context.
One immersive learning solution I really like is TimePod Adventures from Verizon. It features free time-traveling episodes designed to engage students in places like Mars and prehistoric Earth. Now accessible directly through a web browser on a laptop, Chromebook, or mobile device, students need only internet access and audio output to begin the journey. Guided by an AI-powered assistant and featuring grade-band specific lesson plans, these missions across time and space encourage students to take control, explore incredible environments, and solve complex challenges.
Immersive learning content can be overwhelming at first, but professional development resources are available to help educators build confidence while earning microcredentials. These resources let educators quickly dive into new and innovative techniques and teaching strategies that help increase student engagement.
Taken together, engaging learning opportunities are ones that show students how classrooms learnings directly connect to their real lives. With resources like virtual field trips and immersive learning content, students can dive into school topics in ways that are fun, fresh, and sometimes otherworldly.
Leia J. DePalo, Northport-East Northport Union Free School District
Leia J. (LJ) DePalo is an Elementary STEM and Future Forward Teacher (FFT) in the Northport-East Northport School District with over 20 years of experience in education. LJ holds a Master of Science in Literacy and permanent New York State teaching certifications in Elementary Education, Speech, and Computer Science. A dedicated innovator, she collaborates with teachers to design technology-infused lessons, leads professional development, and choreographs award-winning school musicals. In recognition of her creativity and impact, DePalo was named a 2025 Innovator Grant recipient.
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Leia J. DePalo, Northport-East Northport Union Free School District
LOWELL — Lowell High School senior Cyrus Bridge’s passion for STEM education began in fifth grade at IDEA Camp, a summer partnership between UMass Lowell, Lowell Public Schools, and Project LEARN. The weeklong camp provides hands-on STEM experiences for students in grades 5-12.
At 17 years old, Bridge is a eight-year IDEA Camp veteran, now serving as counselor.
“I did robotics, I did computer programming, there were art courses,” Bridge said. “It’s been great exposure and formative for my career choices — showing me that I want to go into STEM education.”
In a time of uncertain funding, rising costs, and shifting priorities, experiential learning opportunities are at risk.
Enter the Lowell Schools Fund — a Project LEARN initiative raising private dollars for high-impact programs in Lowell Public Schools. The fund is designed to fill gaps in public funding by soliciting donations from alumni, foundations, and corporate sponsors.
“Federal funds are drying up; grants that we depend on are being cut back or just stopped midstream,” Superintendent of Schools Liam Skinner said. “The Lowell Schools Fund will help fill these gaps, providing educational opportunities for students that complement the work happening inside LPS classrooms.”
The fund will invest in programs that empower the whole child: priorities include literacy and early learning, college and career readiness, STEM and arts enrichment, wraparound services, and funds earmarked for teacher innovation. Funding decisions will be made jointly by Project LEARN and LPS leadership, dispensed quarterly to respond to student needs in real time and in tight alignment with district LPS priorities.
The establishment of the fund, which aims to raise $100,000 by the end of 2025 and $300,000 by the end of the 2025-2026 school year, was announced at the Sept. 30 grand opening of the Nancy L. Donahue Learning Lab, Project LEARN’s new space on Central Street.
“It’s a hub for curiosity, connection, and possibility,” Project LEARN Executive Director LZ Nunn said of the Learning Lab. “It’s a place where students can see themselves as future scientists, entrepreneurs, civic leaders, and professionals — and where our community comes together to make that vision real.
“We’re closing opportunity gaps. Every student deserves the opportunity to build the skills, confidence, and networks necessary to navigate higher education and the workforce” Nunn said.
Support for the Fund will allow these pivotal career connected opportunities to thrive. With sustained investment, students can continue to expect access to paid internships with industry leaders, hands-on STEM experiences, immersive art projects, and ongoing opportunities to grow their 21st century skills.
“This is a good day for Lowell,” said state Rep. Vanna Howard, who had the honor of dedicating the Learning Lab’s spacious conference room to her friend and mentor, Project LEARN co-founder and Chair Emeritus Brian Martin. “His vision and dedication to this city continue to inspire not only me, but generations of young people in Lowell.”
Martin, a former Lowell mayor, city manager, and head of Lowell High School, and his extended family, made the first donation to the Lowell Schools Fund, pledging $10,000.
In addition to Cyrus, several Lowell High School alumni attended the event, highlighting how programs available through LPS and Project LEARN built their confidence and improved their skills.
Sebastian Rivera (LHS ’24) participated in the Education Pathway at Lowell High, where he was able to gain hands-on experience in a third-grade classroom at the Bailey Elementary School. While reading to a group, he noticed a student struggling to comprehend. Initially Rivera thought he was speaking too quickly or the visuals were unclear. But by the end of the lesson, he realized the student’s primary language was Spanish — just like his.
“I was so eager to connect with this student and show him the representation that was in front of him,” Rivera said. “We were able to speak in Spanish at the end of the lesson and to see his face light up with joy because he felt seen is something that I reflect back to all the time.”
Following that rewarding teaching experience, Rivera joined Community Teamwork’s school-age program as a group leader, teaching the same student.
“It was a full circle moment where I was like, yeah, I’m definitely in the right spot, and it solidified that I’m on the right path,” he said.
Today, Rivera is a junior at UMass Lowell, majoring in sociology with a concentration in policy and social problems, and dual minors in education and English.
For more information and to support the Lowell Schools Fund, visit lowellschoolsfund.org.
Wait, I saw this. You posted a video of someone in the crowd telling you they were a veterinarian and then you said “OK, some of this might not be right …” and then that got a laugh.
Yeah, definitely.
I normally start shows by saying I have a degree in chemistry, and then asking who else does. If there’s anyone in there that has a degree in chemistry of a higher level or from a better university, I’m cooked.
What’s the worst heckle you’ve ever gotten?
I did a work in progress show last Sunday, and I was doing a joke about exothermic reactions.
This is the joke where you ask if the audience wants to hear about exothermic reactions and then say you don’t have the energy.
Yeah, and in my head, I swear it’s right. But I just hear a little voice that goes, “Actually, I think if you change that to activation energy, it will work much better.”
OK, fair, but yours also works, so …
I do one joke where I draw a line of best fit. In Edinburgh, I drew it as a straight linear line of best fit and then after the laughter died someone piped up and was like, “Actually, it’s an exponential curve of best fit.”
What’s worse is that I’ve done that joke many times and it wasn’t until someone said that that everyone in the audience was like “Yeah, they’re right.” It’s like oh no, I’ve done this joke 20 times …
Do you think of your sets as educational? Or at least informative?
Maybe a bit. But I’d probably put that energy to other things. Like I’m currently writing a book about the periodic table, and it’s like a young adult kids’ book. So it’s ages 10 to 15. That is actually genuinely educational where I’ve divided the book into groups of the periodic table, and then each group is related to their characteristics and their properties as an element, and then I sort of fictionalized them into personalities that match those properties. So that is educational. But it could lead to me producing, hopefully, more educational content like the book.
As a teacher, I heard it all the time: “I’m not a math person.”
I would be in line at the grocery store, wearing a math T-shirt one of my students got for me, and I’d hear it: “Algebra? Who needs it?”
I would ask the person if they’d shopped with a coupon, bought a cheaper store brand, looked at the unit price on toilet paper or if they’d mentally calculated their total before heading to the checkout line.
I’d smile and say — “All of that is algebraic thinking.”
Despite my assurances, the idea that “I am just not into math” was, and still is, pervasive. Sometimes the thought comes from students, often from parents or colleagues, and more often than not it is said with a kind of resignation — as if math were a club you either got into early or missed forever.
That mindset has never been more insidious than it is now, when mathematics knowledge is needed more than ever. Every day we rely on math to interpret data, whether it’s tracking public health trends, forecasting weather, making financial decisions or navigating technology.
The ability to reason quantitatively, spot patterns and make decisions based on evidence has become integral to how we all navigate the world. Yet recent national data shows we’re falling short. Fewer than one in three eighth graders are on grade level in math, according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores.
Across nearly every industry, from agriculture to aerospace, mathematical reasoning is becoming more essential. Employers across sectors increasingly need people who can interpret data, test ideas and solve unfamiliar problems.
If we want more young people to access these growing opportunities, we need to rapidly expand access to the after-school and summer programs that help them develop the confidence and curiosity to build math skills.
Right now, too many young people are missing out. After-school and summer learning programs are rarely included in state or federal improvement plans, even though research shows that they are proven to reinforce classroom learning and build student confidence.
In addition, educators in these programs could benefit from training and resources to help young people connect more fully with math.
With the right support from funders and policymakers, these challenges can be addressed, and millions more students can build the math skills they’ll need. Every student deserves the chance to build confidence in math, not just those who excel early.
The stakes are far too high to keep throwing the same solutions at the problem. We need to think differently — not just about how we teach math, but how and where young people experience it.
After-school and summer programs give young people a chance to engage with math in low-pressure settings that don’t feel like an extension of school. They aren’t bound by curriculum or high-stakes test prep.
In these programs, educators can naturally bring math into real-life experiences — budgeting for a community project, designing a video game, planning the route for a field trip or understanding the data behind a favorite sport or song.
These programs also create opportunities to engage families in everyday math and to elevate older youth as peer mentors or tutors — making math feel more personal, social and relevant.
Out-of-school experiences mean students aren’t expected to memorize a formula before they can explore an idea. They’re encouraged to ask questions, try things out and see what happens.
And, importantly, they can take time to try, reflect and try again, without fear of being wrong.
When mistakes are treated as part of the mathematical reasoning process, students start to take more risks. They begin trusting themselves to navigate challenges, which builds their confidence.
That shift is especially important for students who have internalized the message that math isn’t for them, and it will carry them much further than an emphasis on better test scores and grades.
At STEM Next, we’re working to foster that shift by supporting after-school and summer programs, training informal educators and strengthening the learning environments where math confidence takes root.
Our recent publication offers a closer look at how after-school and summer programs are helping students experience math differently, and why that shift matters now more than ever.
Expanding access to these programs isn’t just to help kids grow math skills today, it’s a long-term investment in our workforce and our future.
Camsie McAdams is director of the Institute for a STEM Ready America at STEM Next Opportunity Fund.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
San Antonio, TX (August 26, 2025)—Over 25 years since Walking with Dinosaurs first stomped across the screen and following its awe-inspiring return this past June, BBC Studios has launched a virtual field trip that brings the wonder of prehistoric discovery directly into grade 3– 6 classrooms around the world. Offering students unprecedented access to dig sites and discoveries, comprehensive new educational resources on the BBC Learning Hubwill enrich how students experience paleontology, natural history, and STEM concepts.
The virtual field trip includes six dinosaur dig sites to “visit,” each with specially chosen video clips from this year’s exciting reimagining of Walking With Dinosaurs. Students can fill out the printable Paleontologist Field Journal as they watch, and complete quizzes about each dig site to explore and imagine the prehistoric past. Fun extras include a “Which Dinosaur Are You?” quiz, links to videos about how to build a dinosaur in MinecraftEducation, and an easy-to-use teachers guide.
Aligned with national science standards, the new materials are designed to support educators in creating engaging, hands-on learning experiences that inspire the next generation of scientists and paleontologists.
“The Walking with Dinosaurs virtual field trips let students take the lead. Navigating the prehistoric world on their own fuels their fascination with dinosaurs, and empowers them to experience the scientific process in action,” said Dana Truby, executive director of content and partnerships for BBC Learning. “It’s a resource that makes science come alive.”
Following the success of previous BBC Earth educational partnerships, including the PlanetEarth III and Frozen Planet II Minecraft Educationworlds that have reached millions of students globally, these new Walking with Dinosaurs resources continue to demonstrate the power of combining world-class content with innovative educational approaches. The collaboration leverages BBC Studios’ award-winning factual programming expertise alongside PBS’s deep commitment to educational excellence in American classrooms.
This educational partnership draws from the latest paleontological discoveries featured in the
Walking with Dinosaurs series. Students will explore the stories of iconic dinosaurs including Spinosaurus, Triceratops, and Lusotitan, while learning fundamental scientific concepts about evolution, ecosystems, and research methodologies. The resources are designed to support diverse learning styles for grades 3–6.
BBC Studios and PBS bring unparalleled expertise to this educational initiative. BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC, has a proven track record of creating educational content that reaches global audiences, producing more than 2,800 hours of award-winning programming each year. Their commitment to scientific accuracy and engaging storytelling makes complex topics accessible to learners of all ages. PBS, with more than 330 member stations nationwide, serves as America’s largest classroom, reaching millions of students through PBS Learning Media and providing educators with trusted, high-quality digital content that brings lessons to life.
“What makes these resources exceptional is how they connect abstract scientific concepts to tangible discoveries students can see and touch,” said Kimmie Fink, Senior Editor of BBC Learning and a former teacher. “When students learn about Triceratops through the lens of actual paleontological fieldwork, they’re not just memorizing facts—they’re thinking like scientists.”
The resources are designed to address critical needs in STEM education while fostering curiosity about the natural world. By connecting students to real paleontological discoveries and the scientists making them, the materials help bridge the gap between classroom learning and realworld scientific inquiry.
For educators, the resources offer professionally developed content that saves preparation time and helps them deliver engaging, standards-aligned instruction. The virtual field trip and supporting materials are available at no cost to educators, reflecting the BBC and PBS’s commitment to making high-quality educational content accessible to all students. Teachers and district leaders interested in accessing the Walking With Dinosaurs educational resources can visit the BBC Learning Hub.
Walking With Dinosaurs is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS appin the United States. BBC Studios owns the global licensing and sales rights for Walking With Dinosaurs.
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eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
LOWELL — The 10K Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race returns to the Mill City Saturday for the eighth year as teams combine engineering, art and a little determination to get a human-powered machine across the finish line.
There will be 15 teams from across New England competing in the race, all with their own mechanical creations designed to be driven across the bumpy cobblestones of downtown Lowell, a mud pit and the Merrimack River.
The race has been taking place in Lowell since 2016, and it is inspired by a similar event that takes place in California each year, which UMass Lowell art and design professor and Race Director Michael Roundy was able to see for himself.
“I saw seven of them out there,” said Roundy in a video call Wednesday morning. “There is a culture that goes around the Kinetic Sculpture Races, and the people that were involved were my kind of people… When I came back to the East Coast and was working here in Lowell, it seemed like Lowell had that same kind of spirit.”
The rules of the race are, mostly, straightforward. Many concern safety, like the requirement that the sculpture has to be easy to get out of, and cannot be harmful to the pilots or the environment around it as it moves. All kinetic sculptures must be able to move with no electric or gas propulsion allowed, only by the power of wind, gravity, or the humans controlling the sculpture. They must conform to Massachusetts vehicle size restrictions, while also having capacity for a single stuffed animal that must be carried by the team throughout the course.
The full list of rules and safety requirements, and the course map, can be read at Lowellkinetic.com.
While there is naturally a little bit of a competitive spirit to the race, Roundy said the teams are competing against themselves just as much as they are racing against each other.
“Teams come into this with the idea of just making it through the race. It really is a battle against yourself more than a battle against everyone else,” said Roundy.
As such, sculptures breaking down throughout the race is to be expected, and prompts teams to tinker with their machines and bring them back the following year.
Still, a breakdown isn’t necessarily the end of the race for the team, said Kinetic Sculpture Race Producer Bianca Mauro.
“Knowing that really tough challenges are a part of this course riddled with obstacles, we get to come up with the coolest volunteers ever to get these teams out of trouble,” said Mauro.
Those volunteers, Mauro said, are called “The Wrecking Crew,” and they drive around the race course with tools in the back of their vehicle, ready to lend a hand or make a quick repair to a sculpture that finds itself stuck, or even transport them to the next obstacle.
“We do what we can to bring in this wide range of people beyond the team who love to fix this stuff,” said Mauro.
Festivities begin at 9 a.m. Saturday with “Meet the Machines,” where the participating kinetic sculptures will be on display for spectators to get a closer look and meet the pilots.
The opening ceremony and race itself will begin at 11:30 a.m. on Market Street between Dutton and Palmer streets. The course goes toward Central Street before the sculptures turn toward Middle Street, which serves as the first obstacle of the course known as “Bone Shaker Alley,” thanks to the very uneven and bumpy old cobblestones that make up the street.
The course then moves back to Market Street in the other direction to Cabot Street, then to Father Morissette Boulevard and into “The Maddening Mud Pit” across from the Tsongas Center. The sculptures then make their way across the University Avenue bridge and up the river toward the Sampas Pavilion on the Merrimack River along Pawtucket Boulevard. There, the sculptures have to get into the river and travel the water route before getting back onto the street and going back the way they came, eventually ending on Market Street where the race began.
Among those designing a sculpture for this year is Brendan Falvey for his team “Stampede.” Falvey has a broad engineering background and works for Thermo Fisher Scientific in Tewksbury, where he tries to see the overall picture of a product and bridge the gaps between the needs of electrical, mechanical and software engineering.
This year is Falvey’s first time participating, which he was inspired to do after watching the race for the first time last year. His sculpture consists of five tricycles welded together to work in tandem “serpentine” style with five pilots, with larger wheels ready to install before the mud pit and water obstacle to help the sculpture float. Every team must also have a theme and decorative piece to their sculpture, so Falvey and his four teammates will be dressed up in cow colors, and their flotation wheels will be painted as such as well, hence the name Stampede.
Falvey’s goal, he said, is to “ace” the race, which means to finish without needing any outside assistance, even if a team has to fix a problem themselves.
Falvey has been working on the design for the last 10 months, he said.
“I joined Lowell Makes to learn new skills, and took a welding class. I have a wood shop at home, but I don’t have a metal shop, so I use the one there quite a bit,” said Falvey.
One team will consist of members of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell, where members and volunteers have been modifying a kinetic sculpture donated by Make It Labs in Nashua, N.H. The club has participated in the Kinetic Sculpture Race in the past, but not since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Their sculpture will be outfitted with sails and everything they need to make it look like a pirate ship. It consists of four bicycle seats on top of a mixed material platform, from which the four pilots steer and peddle the four large wheels lined with bicycle tire rubber.
Among the Boys & Girls Club team will be Damaris Gomes-Nova, 17, who is participating in the race for her first time.
“We had the opportunity to do something new we have never tried, so who knows, it could be fun,” said Gomes-Nova at the club Sept. 11.
Gomes-Nova is one of six club members working on their sculpture with staff members, including UMass Lowell sophomore Aleah Colon.
“I thought it was pretty cool to work on something that was a sculpture, but also was … hands on, and also engaging in the community and getting the Boys & Girls Club out there,” said Colon.
Colon said they still have to take the machine for a test drive, but it is known to have worked in the past as it was featured in the race last year while being driven by a group of teachers from Lowell. Gomes-Nova felt confident in the team being able to get to the finish line.
“I’ll make sure we win,” Gomes-Nova said with confidence in her team.
In a statement, Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell Executive Director Joseph Hungler said club leadership is “incredibly proud of our members for taking part in the Kinetic Sculpture Race.”
“This unique, creative event is a perfect reflection of the innovation, teamwork, and problem solving skills we foster and encourage every day at the club,” said Hungler. “Seeing our club kids bring their ideas to life and engage with the community in such a fun way truly showcases the power of experiential learning.”
At the Lowell Makes workshop Sept. 6, Rudy Dominguez was doing some work on his own sculpture, The Aluminum Falcon, which will be featured for the third time this year. The sculpture is themed after the iconic Millennium Falcon from “Star Wars,” and is powered by two sets of bicycle seats with a model of the ship placed over the top. Dominguez said the sculpture failed two obstacles into their last two attempts, but they are bringing it back for a third try, with some modifications.
“This entire front end is completely new and built from scratch,” said Dominguez, pointing toward where he made the changes.
The race course covers a large area, but Mauro said there would be shuttles available to bring spectators to each of the obstacles throughout the day.
Outside the race itself, Mauro said organizers are working to find more sponsors this year amid general cuts to arts funding by the state and federal governments.
“Finding funding for arts and culture is becoming more and more challenging. We are going to great lengths to go to companies willing to invest in STEM and arts events. With that investment we do have plans to expand the course, make obstacles more challenging and making things more engaging for the teams and spectators,” said Mauro.
She noted the KSR organizers have “been advised to proactively look for alternate funding for 2026.”
One of the country’s largest STEM gatherings, the four-day convention at the Pennsylvania Convention Center connects top talent with industry leaders, academics, and career opportunities.
PHILADELPHIA, September 12, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– SHPE: Leading Hispanics in STEM, the nation’s largest organization for Hispanics in science, technology, engineering, and math, will host its 2025 National Convention at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from October 29 to November 1. The four-day event will feature the highly anticipated Career Fair and introduce new offerings, including University Village and the LeaderSHPE Wardrobe.
The event will host the top talent in STEM. Some 12,000 students, professionals, industry leaders, and academics are expected to attend, making it one of the country’s largest STEM gatherings. Thousands of jobs will be offered at the Career Fair, October 31-November 1, with recruiting by more than 150 leading companies, including Bank of America, Chevron, Wells Fargo, 3M, Accenture, Amazon, Apple, Boston Scientific, Caterpillar, Delta, Ford, Intel, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, and Honda.
“With about 11 million STEM jobs projected to be available by 2031, there is a great opportunity for attendees to meet someone in Philadelphia who will elevate their careers,” said Suzanna Valdez Wolfe, CEO of SHPE. “National and international corporations return year after year because they get direct access to top talent in one place.”
Convention Highlights
Career Fair: More than 150 companies recruiting, interviewing, and hiring onsite for internships and jobs.
Educational Sessions: Specialized tracks include SHPEtinas (for women), Inclusion, SHPETech, Community College, Grad School, and Professionals.
Día de Ciencias (Oct. 29): At Esperanza Academy Charter School, SHPE brings science to life for 8th graders, alongside Equipando Padres, a bilingual event helping parents support children pursuing higher education.
LeaderSHPE Wardrobe – Engineer Your Look (NEW): With support from Bank of America and Amazon, SHPE will provide attendees with free business and cocktail attire.
University Village (NEW): A dedicated space for graduate students featuring a Grad School Expo with 50+ schools, Graduate Track sessions, STEM Research Competition, and 3-Minute Thesis Competition.
In addition to connecting members with many of the top recruiters and leaders in STEM, the SHPE Convention is one of the most powerful tools for preparing Hispanic students and professionals to become leaders in their field. The four-day event provides attendees with professional and leadership development opportunities through workshops, networking events, competitions, award ceremonies, and more.
The SHPE Convention will also include the presentation of the prestigious STAR (SHPE Technical Achievement and Recognition) Awards, spotlighting key individuals, corporations, government agencies, and academic institutions that have contributed significantly to support the mission of SHPE.
Early bird registration runs through September 15, with regular registration until October 14 and late registration through November 1.
Contact Information
Helena Poleo Communications and Media Specialist hpoleo@gmail.com (954) 559-3079
America’s future is not made in factories or innovation labs — it’s forged in classrooms. We can’t bring good jobs back to U.S. shores if we don’t first educate a workforce capable of doing them. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, known as the Nation’s Report Card, paints a grim picture, with test scores down since 2019 for eighth graders in science and 12th graders in math and reading.
The lowest-performing learners lost the most ground, leaving large percentages of students unable to perform the strong academic work required for postsecondary life. Only about 1 in 5 high school seniors scored at the NAEP Proficient level in math. That puts them at a terrible disadvantage since STEM positions make up a growing percentage of the workforce. Nearly half were working below even the NAEP Basic level, meaning they likely don’t know how to use percentages to solve real-world problems.
This isn’t the first bad report card we’ve seen since the pandemic upended learning five years ago, but progress in American education has generally been stalled for at least a decade. Leaders at every level need to stop using the pandemic as an excuse and start looking for solutions. There have been times in the past when Republicans and Democrats have come together around education. While that may be difficult to do today, it’s needed more than ever.
We need new approaches, more resources and all hands on deck to help students develop the knowledge and skills to thrive in an increasingly complicated world. The teens who took the 12th grade tests are now out of school. They’re facing a workforce disrupted by AI and demanding more from them — not less. Even young people who opt not to go to college, such as those looking to work in manufacturing, for example, need more advanced STEM and literacy skills than in the past.
There are some areas of educational progress around the country we can learn from. For example, Indiana is remaking the American high school experience to personalize it and connect it to the world of work, while Rhode Island is reinvigorating career and technical education to embed it with more rigor and ensure it provides an on-ramp to an array of postsecondary options, including college.
We can also expand on the reforms that are taking root in elementary education. An emphasis on the research behind teaching children to read, sometimes referred to as the science of reading, is effective. And states like Mississippi and Louisiana, leaders in this movement, have seen strong literacy gains. We can apply that kind of evidence-based approach across K-12 subjects and grades.
It’s also vital to listen to what students are saying. Fortunately, the Nation’s Report Card can help with this.
Survey data accompanying the eighth grade science assessment suggests that inquiry-based learning is in decline. Fewer students say they’re spending time on things like designing experiments to answer research questions. That kind of instruction helps students build science knowledge and develop key skills like the ability to think critically and to collaborate with peers, exactly the kind of skills that AI can’t replace.
The best instruction has a purpose for learning, explores real-world problems and makes connections to work. Most states have passed science standards that promote this kind of instruction, but more resources are needed to get aligned materials into schools and provide teachers with the training to use them effectively.
Getting kids out of the classroom helps too. I invited elementary school students to my farm in western Massachusetts a few years ago and vividly recall a fourth grader’s aha moment, finally understanding decimals when collecting 2.25 inches of rain in a vial. It was a terrific example of how interdisciplinary science is and how powerful it is in experiential learning settings.
It’s true that science resources, such as lab materials, can be expensive; however, schools can tap into community partners and business leaders for assistance. In Massachusetts, for example, General Electric has helped bring mobile technology labs into schools.
One thing I am grateful for, even amid all this bad education news, is the high-quality data shining a light on the problems we’re facing. There are too many voices today calling for a rollback of testing. That’s a mistake. Obtaining meaningful data, such as that found on the Nation’s Report Card, is crucial. Of course, what we do with it matters even more.
It has been 42 years since American leaders from across political parties and sectors came together to bring attention to “A Nation at Risk,” a landmark report that spurred significant education reforms. And it’s been 36 years since 49 governors came together and defined the state role in K-12 schooling.
After these milestones, the nation saw sustained progress on NAEP. We need that same leadership now.
Republican Jane Swift is a former governor from Massachusetts who serves on theNational Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the Nation’s Report Card. She is also the CEO ofEducation at Work, a nonprofit that connects college students with work-based learning opportunities.
This story about NAEP scores was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Science meets skating this Monday as Oaks Park Roller Rink hosts a special event in honor of Oregon Science Week. From 6 to 8 PM on September 8, families, students, and curious minds of all ages are invited to enjoy an evening of interactive STEM activities—on wheels.
The historic rink, one of the oldest in the nation, will be transformed into a vibrant celebration of science and movement. The event promises a high-energy roller-skating session paired with hands-on experiments and demonstrations designed to make science fun and accessible.
“Oregon Science Week is about sparking imagination and making science accessible to everyone,” said Emily MacKay, Marketing & Events Director at Oaks Park. “We’re excited to offer the joy of skating with engaging STEM fun, giving kids and adults alike a chance to learn, move, and celebrate together.”
Highlights of the event include:
A science-themed roller skating session under disco lights
Live STEM demos and interactive activities
Discounted admission and a rare chance to skate in a piece of Portland history
Tickets are just $5 per skater, and include standard skate rental if purchased online. Admission is free for non-skating chaperones. On-site tickets will be available, though skate rentals start at $1. Parking is $4 per vehicle.
Whether you’re a science lover or just looking for a fun way to spend Monday evening, Oaks Park promises a unique blend of education and entertainment for all ages.
IRVING, Texas — Crowded around a workshop table, four girls at de Zavala Middle School puzzled over a Lego machine they had built. As they flashed a purple card in front of a light sensor, nothing happened.
The teacher at the Dallas-area school had emphasized that in the building process, there are no such thing as mistakes. Only iterations. So the girls dug back into the box of blocks and pulled out an orange card. They held it over the sensor and the machine kicked into motion.
“Oh! Oh, it reacts differently to different colors,” said sixth grader Sofia Cruz.
In de Zavala’s first year as a choice school focused on science, technology, engineering and math, the school recruited a sixth grade class that’s half girls. School leaders are hoping the girls will stick with STEM fields. In de Zavala’s higher grades — whose students joined before it was a STEM school — some elective STEM classes have just one girl enrolled.
Efforts to close the gap between boys and girls in STEM classes are picking up after losing steam nationwide during the chaos of the Covid pandemic. Schools have extensive work ahead to make up for the ground girls lost, in both interest and performance.
In the years leading up to the pandemic, the gender gap nearly closed. But within a few years, girls lost all the ground they had gained in math test scores over the previous decade, according to an Associated Press analysis. While boys’ scores also suffered during Covid, they have recovered faster than girls, widening the gender gap.
As learning went online, special programs to engage girls lapsed — and schools were slow to restart them. Zoom school also emphasized rote learning, a technique based on repetition that some experts believe may favor boys, instead of teaching students to solve problems in different ways, which may benefit girls.
Old practices and biases likely reemerged during the pandemic, said Michelle Stie, a vice president at the National Math and Science Initiative.
“Let’s just call it what it is,” Stie said. “When society is disrupted, you fall back into bad patterns.”
In most school districts in the 2008-09 school year, boys had higher average math scores on standardized tests than girls, according to AP’s analysis, which looked at scores across 15 years in over 5,000 school districts. It was based on average test scores for third through eighth graders in 33 states, compiled by the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University.
A decade later, girls had not only caught up, they were ahead: Slightly more than half of districts had higher math averages for girls.
Within a few years of the pandemic, the parity disappeared. In 2023-24, boys on average outscored girls in math in nearly 9 out of 10 districts.
A separate study by NWEA, an education research company, found gaps between boys and girls in science and math on national assessments went from being practically non-existent in 2019 to favoring boys around 2022.
Studies have indicated girls reported higher levels of anxiety and depression during the pandemic, plus more caretaking burdens than boys, but the dip in academic performance did not appear outside STEM. Girls outperformed boys in reading in nearly every district nationwide before the pandemic and continued to do so afterward.
“It wasn’t something like Covid happened and girls just fell apart,” said Megan Kuhfeld, one of the authors of the NWEA study.
In the years leading up to the pandemic, teaching practices shifted to deemphasize speed, competition and rote memorization. Through new curriculum standards, schools moved toward research-backed methods that emphasized how to think flexibly to solve problems and how to tackle numeric problems conceptually.
Educators also promoted participation in STEM subjects and programs that boosted girls’ confidence, including extracurriculars that emphasized hands-on learning and connected abstract concepts to real-life applications.
When STEM courses had large male enrollment, Superintendent Kenny Rodrequez noticed girls losing interest as boys dominated classroom discussions at his schools in Grandview C-4 District outside Kansas City. Girls were significantly more engaged after the district moved some of its introductory hands-on STEM curriculum to the lower grade levels and balanced classes by gender, he said.
When schools closed for the pandemic, the district had to focus on making remote learning work. When in-person classes resumed, some of the teachers had left, and new ones had to be trained in the curriculum, Rodrequez said.
“Whenever there’s crisis, we go back to what we knew,” Rodrequez said.
Despite shifts in societal perceptions, a bias against girls persists in science and math subjects, according to teachers, administrators and advocates. It becomes a message girls can internalize about their own abilities, they say, even at a very young age.
In his third grade classroom in Washington, D.C., teacher Raphael Bonhomme starts the year with an exercise where students break down what makes up their identity. Rarely do the girls describe themselves as good at math. Already, some say they are “not a math person.”
“I’m like, you’re 8 years old,” he said. “What are you talking about, ‘I’m not a math person?’”
Girls also may have been more sensitive to changes in instructional methods spurred by the pandemic, said Janine Remillard, a math education professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Research has found girls tend to prefer learning things that are connected to real-life examples, while boys generally do better in a competitive environment.
“What teachers told me during Covid is the first thing to go were all of these sense-making processes,” she said.
At de Zavala Middle School in Irving, the STEM program is part of a push that aims to build curiosity, resilience and problem-solving across subjects.
Coming out of the pandemic, Irving schools had to make a renewed investment in training for teachers, said Erin O’Connor, a STEM and innovation specialist there.
The district last year also piloted a new science curriculum from Lego Education. The lesson involving the machine at de Zavala, for example, had students learn about kinetic energy. Fifth graders learned about genetics by building dinosaurs and their offspring with Lego blocks, identifying shared traits.
“It is just rebuilding the culture of, we want to build critical thinkers and problem solvers,” O’Connor said.
Teacher Tenisha Willis recently led second graders at Irving’s Townley Elementary School through building a machine that would push blocks into a container. She knelt next to three girls who were struggling.
They tried to add a plank to the wheeled body of the machine, but the blocks didn’t move enough. One girl grew frustrated, but Willis was patient. She asked what else they could try, whether they could flip some parts around. The girls ran the machine again. This time, it worked.
“Sometimes we can’t give up,” Willis said. “Sometimes we already have a solution. We just have to adjust it a little bit.”
Lurye reported from Philadelphia. Todd Feathers contributed reporting from New York.
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
