Education is not only about accumulating knowledge and storing it in your brain rather it is about applying that knowledge in your daily life and bringing solutions for the challenges you face. As we know that the term “21st century” has become an integral part of our educational planning. Today the role of educators should be helping every student to know how to learn not what to learn and how to think not what to think. It should inspire the skills of creativity, encourage collaboration, provide opportunities to learn critical thinking, and teaching children about the power of effective communication. Hence, educators are actively searching for ways to prepare students for the future, and the education system has been evolving faster than ever before. Realizing these needs of the 21st-century learners, the researchers in the education field have come up with STEM pedagogy.

STEM a term initiated by the US National Science Foundation and stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. It is a method of education wherein one or more subjects are taught in coherence with the help of the hands-on application. It emphasizes bridging the learning gap by providing children hands-on experience and making them active learners. We can’t deny the fact that technical and scientific skills are becoming increasingly important, exposing children to STEM learning in the early years is the key to make them capable individuals for the future. Since STEM also includes teaching-learning of engineering and technology, it does not mean that it is relevant only for the older kids. This teaching is applicable for all the age-groups. It is about instilling the thought process of inquiry and application of knowledge. 

STEM learning can benefit the kids in the following ways: 

• Students learn how they can solve real-life problems by using acquired knowledge during the creation of projects. With the help of such project or activities, students get encouraged to learn more and more and spend most of their time learning and experimenting. 

• The hands-on learning experience of the concept helps to evolve the mindset of the student. It enables students to observe and learn at their own pace.

• Through STEM learning students learn various types of useful innovative skills such as computational thinking, problem-solving skills, creativity, logical reasoning, better decision making, and observation

• This allows students to understand collaboration skill through teamwork when they engage in performing STEM-related activities together and this creates a healthy learning environment in class

• STEM education helps students to remain up-to-date about the latest new changes and enhancements which are happening in the field of technology. Kids love to interact with gadgets like smartphones, tablets, etc. with the help of STEM learning they will understand the inner workings of these devices too.

Conducting STEM-learning activities in the classroom

STEM can be promoted through project-based learning or activities which involves more than one discipline among Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. 

Some of the steps which can be taken to conduct a STEM activity in class are as follows:

1. Selection of activity on the basis of skills you want to provide to the students, align it to the subjects and topics you want to teach
2. Connect activity to the real-world situations or problems to which students need to  find solutions and explain it in detail to the students
3. Identify the material required by the students and brief them on the instructions to do the activity 
4. Divide students into groups and involve them in researching the content to complete the given task
5. Encourage teams to develop their own ideas about how to solve the problem
6. Involve teams in communicating their findings in front to the class

Adding STEM to your classroom can start with some very simple activities, and progress step by step until you’ve created the ideal environment for nurturing young problem-solvers of your classroom!

Link for the reference of activities: https://www.playdoughtoplato.com/stem-activities-for-kids/