In Illinois, children had the opportunity to sign up for a ‘Star Wars’ themed STEM program, and the positive feedback from the students was overwhelming. One student, who had participated in other STEM programs in the past, found this particular Saturday class to be the most interesting due to its affiliation with one of his favorite films. Encouraging participants to use STEM skills to construct their own droid and light saber was a creative way to spark their imagination. By associating these challenging fields with current cultural interests, the educators saw both a larger turnout of students and more appeal among the children.
STEM education is based on four different fields of study: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Jeremy Benson, one of the educators at this STEM workshop, claims that having a basic understanding of these four disciplines will prepare generations for the rapid growth of technology in the future and allow them to enter numerous career options in STEM fields. The push for STEM programs is strong with this one.
The Galia 
February 27, 2017 at 4:42 pm
This is a really cool way to get students involved! As someone who wants to be an educator, in some capacity, at some point in my life, I am always looking for ways to make people interested in topics. Using topics from popular culture is a tried and true method to get students involved!!
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February 27, 2017 at 9:53 pm
I found this post to be quite interesting, especially since I am also doing research on the topic of education. Personally, I have always been interested in the STEM program and what it consists of, especially since I might be interested in pursuing a career in one of those fields. Unfortunately, in the public schools that I attended, I never had the chance to participate in a program like this. I think it is a great opportunity for students to learn new and innovative things surround the science, technology, engineering, and mathematic fields. However, I am curious as to what kind of school this program took place in (public, private, elementary, high school).
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February 28, 2017 at 9:20 pm
This program in particular was run through Northern Illinois University. They offer several of these STEM courses throughout the year, but students must sign up for the program in advance and some of the classes have sold out in the past. I think students would largely benefit from having programs like this offered in a variety of places in order to introduce children across the country to STEM fields. My old high school and middle school had clubs that surrounded areas of technology and engineering, but they were not very well-known. It would be interesting to see if programs like this would travel to local schools or plan events nearby so that students could get more exposure to the fields.
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