Top K-12 STEM Resources for the 2015/16 School Year

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There is no shortage of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teaching resources online.

Sometimes it’s difficult to dig through all the information and find the most valuable tutorials, lesson plans or videos that will add value to your classroom.

As we settle into the 2015-2016 school year, we’ve pulled together a short list of some of our top choices for educators:

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NASA — Educators

NASA regularly releases STEM lesson plans, teacher guides, classroom activities, video clips, games and posters.  Each week you’ll find a new Classroom Combo for varying grade levels – grades K-4, 5-8, 9-12, and higher education – that features lesson plans and resources to enhance your STEM curriculum.

This week’s Classroom Combo for Grades 5-8 includes a lesson plan on hurricanes and a hands-on engineering design challenge requiring students to build a tower to resist a simulated hurricane. The week before focused on 3D printing in space.

Need something specific? You can also search a library of lesson plans by grade level, lesson type, subject or keyword.

Navy STEM for the Classroom

This is a series of interactive lesson plans from Discovery Education and the Navy. Designed for grades 9-12, these lessons cover topics ranging from the physics of flight to the engineering of future ships.

Examples of lesson plans include Submarines and Aircraft Carriers: The Science of Nuclear Power, Sonar and Echolocation, and The Science of Diving.

3D Printing Curriculum

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This free 3D printing curriculum from Stratasys covers everything from 3D printing basics and parametric modeling to prototyping and 3D manufacturing industry regulations.

Although structured as a 14-week course with weekly class meetings, the curriculum is built in a modular fashion so you can pick and choose what fits within your yearly curriculum plan and focus on topics that cater to your students’ interests.

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SOLIDWORKS Curriculum and Lessons

3D Computer Aided Design and modeling is a foundational tool for teaching science, math, engineering and technology concepts like estimation, volume, three dimensional geometry, and more.

SOLIDWORKS’ Curriculum and Lessons library features several great resources, including a CAD tutorial with LEGO, CAD models for robots, and a CAD Instructor Guide, among others.

STEM Education Resource Center

This resource from PBS Learning Media provides nearly 4,000 STEM resources for PreK-5, 6-12 as well as free, self-paced modules for teachers teaching global climate change to middle school and high school students.

What STEM teaching resources do you rely on? Let us know in the comments section below.