STEM for school-wide Themes

Depending on the school and the leadership,  your school my have yearly themes. These themes are helpful because it provides a focus for the entire building for a year. It also helps business partners identify ways that they may support your schools efforts.  These themes should focus on global and community issues that students can relate to; this theme should bring relevance to your STEM activities throughout the year. Dependent upon how your school practices STEM will determine how students interact with the theme. If your school participates in a monthly school-wide Stem experience this would be when the theme would be the focus for all students. If your school only has standards based STEM activities integrated within the classroom; your students may only interact with the theme during specific units. Regardless of how the students interact with the theme, by the end of the year the goal is for all students to be able to articulate their understanding with no assistance from an adult.  This ability to express the theme is the goal of all lessons.