Program offers teachers unique items for hands-on learning

March 6, 2024

Would your lesson on fossils benefit from dinosaur bone replicas? Could your engineering unit be enhanced by a LEGO robot kit? How about a variety of preserved mammalian organs for your biology class? The College of Education’s Center for STEM Education at Georgia Southern University loans out all of these items and more through their i²STEM^ed School Outreach program.

The program keeps an inventory of STEM-related items, such as microscopes, safety goggles, sheep brains and earthquake tables, in the warehouse that they share with the Georgia Southern Museum. Teachers throughout the region browse items on the program website and request delivery to their school. Georgia Southern professors and practicum students also utilize the program.

Kania Greer, coordinator of the Center, says, “The goal of this program is to make all learning hands-on and inquiry-based.” She encourages instructors outside traditional STEM fields to utilize the program’s resources to add a cross-curriculum element to their lessons. For example, one history teacher has requested Georgia soil samples, core sample tools and soil test kits for a lesson about George Washington Carver. 

The Center’s Administrative Assistant, Mary Thaler, adds, “It doesn’t have to be complicated. We want to make this as easy as possible for teachers.” She fields direct inquiries to the center and says, “If a teacher needs something, we will try to find a way to get it to them.”

Greer and Thaler are continually adding to the program’s inventory based on teacher requests, demand for items, and the program occasionally adds new resources developed by the Center. Thaler says, “We love finding new things and bringing them to teachers.”

The Center for STEM Education’s i²STEM^ed School Outreach program has been operating in its current form since 2019, and has expanded each year. Nearly 300 orders were filled during the 22-23 school year, and orders are on pace to easily surpass 300 this year.

The i²STEM^ed School Outreach program also offers on-site STEM demonstrations for schools. Their STEM Night resources are in high demand with 23 events on the books for this school year.

To see examples of teachers using items from the program in their lessons, visit the Center’s Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/i2stemed. For more information about the Center, visit their website at www.coe.georgiasouthern.edu/stem. To support the work of the Center for STEM Education, give to the STEM Center Foundation through fund 0951.