Changing the world through STEAM education
Welcome To The STEAM Café
The STEAM Café is dedicated to providing quality STEAM content to teachers and families. Please scroll down to view our blogs, or click the button to head over to our library.
Recent Blog Posts

STEM Mystery Bag Challenge
STEM Mystery Bag Challenge If you are looking for an activity that is easy to set up for elementary aged pupils, but still incorporates authentic STEM, then STEM Mystery Bags challenge are exactly what you are looking for! These are great to use if you’re new to teaching STEM or if you need lesson/activity that doesn’t take a ton of

Winter Survival Strategies: Adaptation, Migration, and Hibernation
As the northern hemisphere enters into the depths of winter – January, and February – we begin to embrace the reality of frigid temperatures and copious amounts of snow. We turn up the heat, throw on more blankets and layers of clothing, and bundle up in warm coats when going outside. I often look out my window during these months

STEM Makeover: Investigating How Animals Survive During Winter
This experiment is a great way to get your students thinking about how animals survive in the winter. As with many of our labs and activities, we start with the engage stage in the i5Es, which is about learning what students already know about the subject and invoking their curiosity. For winter survival, start the activity by having kids think

Engineering…It’s Everywhere!
As an elementary teacher, you might be intimidated by incorporating engineering into your classroom. Engineering feels so exotic, different, and overwhelming. But, if you know how to recognize when people are trying to solve a problem, then you are ready to start a conversation about engineering. I think that high-quality children’s literature provides great opportunities to spot engineering in action.
STEM Makeover: Tackling Mystery Science’s Turkey Lesson and Turn it Into Authentic STEM
This week, we’re tackling Mystery Science’s “What’s that red thing on a turkey?” lesson and aligning it to the NGSS! Check out the video

How to Equip Your Makerspace for Under $200
More and more, teachers are looking to empower their students to be creators, makers, and engineers. In the land of open-ended problem-solving, few things

Dealing With The Epic Fail
In our Saturday webinar with Kerry Tracy from Feel Good Teaching, she touched upon the topic of failures. While teachers may have the impulse

Engineering Lesson Structure
Last week I wrote about introducing engineering practices to your classroom. This week, let’s take it a step further and go through the structure of

Introducing Engineering Practices to Your Classroom
Although STEM Challenges aren’t magic, they’re the closest thing to it that I’ve ever experienced in my teaching career! There are so many benefits

Myth Busting Labs that Demonstrate the Nature of Science
This powerpoint is from one of Yen’s workshops at ISTS this year. You can use it to create your own myth-busting labs in your classroom
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