Kara Applegate

Although DJI recently discontinued the Tello EDU and RoboMaster drones, educational drones offer a solid path to teaching programming and piloting skills in your classroom. We spent time with our new addition, the CoDrone EDU, learning to fly and program. Compatible with Blockly and Python, the CoDrone EDU is a top coding companion for kids in a range of grades.

Unruly Splats are interactive buttons designed for students to stomp, jump, and play upon. With pre-coded, standards-aligned activities and their own custom games, students get out of their seats while learning programming principles and SEL skills like working together. Play games for any subject, including math, ELL, special ed, art, physical education, and more!

Earth Day is the perfect holiday to apply the concepts of STEAM education and project-based learning. After all, the central goal of each opportunity is for your students to apply creative and innovative thinking while working to solve real-world community problems. Plus, Earth Day classroom activities can help all educators highlight the critical importance of going green.

Providing our teachers support involves different approaches for different situations. As teachers face novel challenges from in-person learning, new technologies, and more, it is essential to give them the tangible help they need to thrive. Self-care, social-emotional strategies, collaboration, and material resources can all help to alleviate teacher burnout.

Even with STEM tools and active learning, students oftentimes fail to feel fulfilled. With career and technical education, however, they’re able to gain skills in areas that can truly help them. CTE is proven to increase positive career outcomes, prepare students for college, and even improve success in other academic areas—not just STEM.

Recent issues with student attention have inspired teachers to incorporate more audiovisual elements, like podcasts and videos, into the classroom. Research shows that interacting with videos in class improves students’ engagement and retention of STEM content, as well as increasing class satisfaction. Look inside for tips on using video elements in the classroom.

Identify genes, compare DNA samples, study genetic variations, and more with the miniPCR gel electrophoresis and PCR kits. As children learn skills like micropipetting and using a thermal cycler, they can prepare to take on fields like forensics, agriculture, oncology, and others. Kids can even work with the same PCR equipment used on the International Space Station!

The year 2023 is over, but those educational movements that shaped it will continue to impact students in 2024—and beyond. Advances across many key areas, like artificial intelligence, stood out among big EdTech trends for 2023, while personalized learning, cybersecurity, and teacher burnout were also big, and drones, 3D printers, and VR came more into focus.

In these last few weeks before winter break, it’s easy to get distracted from learning. And we get it—everyone needs a break! In the meantime, though, we put together this list of festive projects from some of our favorite STEM tools. Kids can make a mold for a chocolate dreidel, have a robot snowball fight, or even craft custom snowflake

Drones are currently used in many key industries, like telecommunications, agriculture, construction, and security, They are even finding a home in the performing arts, and soon enough, delivery drones might even show up at your door. Therefore, it is essential for middle and high-school students to build familiarity with coding and piloting using the top educational drones.