A longtime successful STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) program partnership between Lone Star College-CyFair’s librarians and Professor Shamim Arastu’s education students has gone virtual to supplement learning at home.
The STEM partnership began as a Service Learning collaboration with the still popular Math Games Day in 2003. Professor Arastu’s students joined in this collaborative experiential learning in 2014 with a focus on new STEM programs geared generally for ages 5-12.
“My students are pre-service teachers and this wonderful collaboration gives our students a way to put into practice what is being learned in class,” said Arastu, “For my students, this experience creating engaging lessons will help prepare them to be effective, innovative and reflective teachers. In addition, the lessons will attract many students to come. We hope those children are excited to learn and maintain enough interest to want to enter in STEM career fields.”
Past face-to-face STEMtastic Stations, STEMtastic Literacy and STEM Power Hour programs have resulted in 845 students receiving 6,173 service hours with 1,539 community children participants, said Cindy Hoffart-Watson, Library Research Specialist.
This spring, STEM lessons in gardening, chemistry, STEM Literacy, and others were recorded and shared with the community garnering more than 900 views from the posted videos. New fall videos on plants, rocks, recycling, tornadoes and more were created this summer. This semester STEM book reviews and STEM games will be added and Arastu’s EDUC 2301 students will be sharing their self-authored special stories that focus on individuals with special needs.
“We have had overwhelming success through the years with these programs and that is one reason why we are collaborating with Professor Arastu’s students to bring to the community STEM-related videos during the pandemic,” Hoffart-Watson said. “These videos may be an enhancement to parents as they teach STEM programs to their children at home doing classwork.”
STEM videos are available at cflibguides.lonestar.edu/service-learning/stem-videos. For information, email choffart@LoneStar.edu.