STEM education outreach

All kids learn differently, whether it be the pace of instruction, the execution (verbal vs. visual), or the content they are learning. To tackle this, we use the help of presentations. With our personally created lesson plans, our volunteers can teach and discuss topics verbally and visually, and the students can refer to these slides whenever they want, allowing them the freedom to absorb and understand the material thoroughly. Each lesson plan is meticulously designed with project-based learning (PBL) principles, encouraging students to engage in real-world problem-solving and critical thinking. PBL has been shown to improve academic achievement, enhance collaboration, and increase student motivation by making learning more relevant and meaningful.

In school, kids are given minimal time each class period to learn and understand all the material being taught. Not all kids learn at the same speed, so they may fall behind or fail to understand particular topics. We aim to solve this problem with tutoring. Our academic volunteers provide tutoring to the kids with topics we cover during our lessons and their schoolwork. During tutoring sessions, project-based learning methods are also applied to help students connect their schoolwork with practical applications, reinforcing their understanding through active exploration and inquiry.

Most of our instruction consists of project-based learning, which has proven to be an effective type of academic instruction. We use hands-on experiments following each lesson to help our students understand the material through application. This allows kids to think about how these concepts apply in the real world and inspire them to explore those fields further. For example, it might be hard for students to understand the force of friction. We could test which surfaces cars travel faster on to help the student see how friction works and applies in the real world. By integrating PBL, students actively participate in projects that require critical thinking, collaboration, and communication, mirroring the skills needed in real-world STEM careers.