From the team at Wizrobotics… and updated for 2023!

With the new school year in full swing, we’ve compiled a few tips and tricks for you and your child to incorporate STEM into everyday activities.

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STEM continues to be a hot topic in academic curriculums. At Wiz Robotics, we can’t stress enough the importance of STEM education for the younger generation (as you can see from our previous blog articles here and here).

With the new school year in full swing, there’s no reason to stop learning about STEM outside of the classroom. You might not have realized it already but STEM touches on almost every aspect of our lives! We’ve compiled a few tips for you and your child to incorporate STEM into everyday activities.

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Here are the 5 ways to incorporate STEM everyday!

1. Build enthusiasm for STEM through Marvel superheroes.

YES you read that right! Marvel universe superheroes have a direct connection to STEM. From Ironman to the Hulk, the key component driving most of the heroes is a solid foundation in STEM.

When asked about the characters from Infinity War and the connection to STEM, the directors of Infinity War, Anthony and Joe Russo commented:

“Their fluency in science and technology is a big part of their super power, if not their entire super power in some cases,” Anthony says. “That’s a core part of their identity and who they are.”

Source: STEM saves the world

The next time you are watching the Marvel movies during family movie night, help build enthusiasm for STEM by talking about the super heroes and their super powers!

2. Incorporate STEM through household activities such as baking and cleaning

STEM is all around us even in activities such as baking and cleaning. If you love to bake with your children, this would be a great opportunity to get them practice addition and subtraction (as well as converting different measurement units)! Additionally, through observing the different reactions of ingredients being combined together in the process of baking, you can introduce the very interesting (and delicious) subject of food science.

Are you wondering what you can do with a background in food science? Read about being an Ice Cream Specialist in our previous article.

Cleaning is another day-to-day activity for your children to learn about STEM. You can introduce the various chemical reactions that would happen when certain cleaning products are applied to various stains and grease around the house.

3. Encourage curiosity and observation

Children are naturally curious about the world around them. Use this as an opportunity to teach them about STEM. If you don’t know the answer, build a framework with your children to encourage research and observation so you can find the answer together.

Observation is also an important process in science. Always support your children in observing the world and encourage them to share what they observe in their environment. For example, looking at the way that leaves change colour, new blooms taking place around the garden, and the change of seasons are all great starting points to introduce STEM.

4. Talk about STEM’s role in addressing some of the biggest challenges facing our world

STEM plays an important role in helping to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges from pollution, to climate change, to food shortages.

For example, STEM in agriculture helps us generate more produce with less effort. This is especially important in areas facing food shortages due to environmental factors and lack of funds.

By introducing and discussing these issues with your children, it encourages them to think about STEM and get them excited about the ways that STEM can save the world.

Source: STEM Beyond the School: Its Role in Everyday Life

5. Get crafty and create STEM projects out of everyday objects

There are a lot of resources out there online that you can create with your children at home (and doesn’t involve spending a fortune on at-home robotics kits).

We’ve came across a few websites with lots of ideas and projects that you could build together with your children:

• 23 Fun STEAM and STEM Activities for Kids — parents.com
• Western University STEM @ Home
• Challenger Centre STEM at Home

Do you have any tips and tricks that you would like to share?

Let us know!

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Ready to take on the next level of STEM learning?

At Wiz Robotics, our STEM classes offer exciting and engaging opportunities for students to practice problem solving. Whether it’s virtual learning or in-class teaching, we will provide you with the support you need for your child’s STEM education.

Try a demo class and see for yourself!

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Science-backed methods to help students learn more effectively

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In Ancient Rome, education was seen as very important and learning in public schools was heavily disciplined.

This was to encourage the belief that boys would learn more quickly and accurately if they were in constant fear of making mistakes.

Fortunately, such practices are no longer allowed (along with the rule that only boys could receive an education).

In modern society, there has been an increasing amount of evidence from researchers on several science-backed studying strategies that are proven to be effective.

Gone are the days of cramming and say hello to Spaced Repetition, Interleaving, and Hypercorrect methods.

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Spaced Repetition

Spaced Repetition, also known as Distributed practice, is the strategy of studying material over a number of relatively short sessions.

According to a study done in 2013, researchers evaluated the 10 most commonly used learning techniques and found that the spaced repetition method was one of the most highly effective studying techniques.

Spacing out learning over time (i.e. 1–2 hours every other day, or a few times a week) was proven to be more effective in retaining more information and for longer.

According to another study from 2006 titled “Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis” published in Psychological Bulletin, the effect of spacing out learning sessions has been demonstrated in over 200 research studies from over a century of research.

In summary — Don’t cram.

Interleave

How often have you heard of the phrase “Practice makes perfect”? We’ve always believed that the key to learning complex concepts is to learn it in blocks where you start with the basics and move on to the next step only when you’ve mastered the current skill. This blocking concept is dominant in schools, training programs, and other settings.

Interleaving is a learning method that’s been gaining popularity in the education world and is proven to be more effective than the traditional blocking method. It’s a technique of combining, mixing, or interleaving different concepts, subjects, or topics to study in one session.

Numerous studies across fields like mathematics (algebra and geometry), athletics (baseball and basketball), music, and medicine suggest that interleaving leads to key benefits for learners:

– Interleaving trains the brain to traverse between concepts by creating different practices rather than relying on rote response or muscle memory.

– Interleaving deepens long-term memory (brain and muscle) associations because mind and body are retrieving various responses.

– Interleaving requires students to discriminate among problem types and select a problem-solving strategy.

How can we use Interleave in practice?

To interleave while studying, students can choose several different topics and spread them throughout their study sessions. For example, studying biology and chemistry together can result in making new connections between topics and help with retrieving information more effectively.

At Wiz, interleaving is one of the teaching techniques that we actively adopt in our classes. Students are taught different areas of STEM to help them grasp a wider topic.

The best example at Wiz is through our competitions. Competitions combine different STEM concepts that students can learn and explore.

For the current Wiz Prodigy Online STEM Competition, students are taught coding and engineering skills in which they are required to use to build their robot. Additionally, the competition also encourages project management and presentation skills.

Learn more about the Wiz Prodigy Competition here.

Hypercorrect

The Hypercorrection effect happens once a general knowledge information is confidently misremembered by someone and the person learns the right version after their initial response is corrected, their likelihood of remembering this piece of information will be higher than someone who was unsure of their initial answer.

Hypercorrect is another technique that’s often used in Wiz classrooms. We love to encourage students to have the opportunity to speak up and participate because that’s the best way to learn!

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Now that you’ve learned the 3 studying tips backed by science, do you have one that you are currently using or you would like to try?

Let us know!

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About the Wiz Prodigy Online STEM Competition

We are hosting the 2022 edition of the Wiz Prodigy Online STEM Competition right now at Wiz Robotics. This year’s theme will be around the space rover.

Each individual or team registration will come with an at-home robotics kit accompanied by the Wiz online learning platform so you can learn to code and build your rover from scratch.

You can learn more about the 2022 Wiz Prodigy Online STEM Competition directly on the website. Be sure to also check out the amazing Cybertruck creations from the 2021 Wiz Prodigy Competition!

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Sources

“Education in Ancient Rome”. HistoryLearning.com. 2015. Web.

“The What, Why, and How Of ‘Interleaving’”. edweek.org. 2021. Web.

“Hypercorrection”. Wikipedia. Web.