Create Your Own walkSTEM® is your chance to put a fun, engaging spin on the STEM learning that is a part of your neighborhood, building, park, mall, museum – you name it! It’s an opportunity to foster STEM mindsets. This is a great classroom or out of school project that can be done in person or virtually. Our walkSTEM® tour Design Frameworks, Guides, and Student Worksheets are freely available. These creative resources can be used in all learning environments.

We also have a version of these materials focused on Math Walks. These materials came from our MathFinder Initiative. Learn more about this initiative at goMathFinder.org.

You can use our video templates so you can conveniently create your own walkSTEM® videos using open-access platforms. Through our MathFinder initiative, we developed a version of our design framework for math walks in elementary and middle grades which is also available for use. Learn more about how to create a walkSTEM® tour on your site.

All ages from Pre-K to adults are welcome to participate. You can work with your peers or in multi-age groups, including family and classroom groups. This is a great project for lots of different learning environments such as mentors to work on with school-aged mentees, service-learning projects for adults or students, and in class projects for K-16 classrooms.

This is different from creating a tutorial video, a walk through instructional video, or a documentary. To get in the right mindset, we’ve provided a few examples of our approach:

A great example is from the walkSTEM® After School Club at Mount Auburn STEAM Academy (MASA). Their club created a walkSTEM® tour on their campus. One of their chosen walkSTEM® stops was the swing set on their playground.

Here are some things we noticed about the swing set:

• The shape that is made when someone is on the swing
• The speed of the person changes depending on how much they move their legs
• The height they reach on the swing changes depending on how much they move their legs
• How could we maximize the height they travel on the swing?
• Would the swing change if the seat were made of different materials, like wood, plastic, metal, etc.?

We chose this question for investigating:

How does the movement of your body affect the movement of the swing?

Notice we did not choose questions that could be answered with a definition, a textbook insert, or a web search. The questions we are looking for can be answered through observation and measurements. For example, some questions about the swing set to avoid would be:

• What is a pendulum? (Textbook definition)
• What is a swing? (Textbook definition)
• What makes the swing come back down? (Textbook definition
• Why do playgrounds have swings? (Cannot be observed / measured)
• How do swings impact kids’ moods? (Cannot be observed / measured)

We wanted our questions and content to be generally accessible and applicable, but if you want to be more focused, you can.

Share your walkSTEM® tours with the growing walkSTEM® community! It’s a great way to experience different places through a STEM lens. Below, you can read directions to submit your walkSTEM® tour creation and we will select the ones that meet our criteria to include on our freely accessible YouTube channel. If you have any questions, please contact us at info@talkstem.org.