COVID-19: Providing STEM Resources to Teachers and Families

Grade level: Elementary  
Description: KinderTEK is an engaging, interactive iPad-based math program Teachers can set up free, cloud-synced class accounts for students to use at home by visiting the KinderTEK website. The app became available to families for $.99 in March.
Resources can be found at: https://kindertek.com/

Grade level: Preschool and Elementary  
Description: The STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education Center (STEMIE) provides a curated set of COVID-19 resources to help families with young children with and without disabilities talk about the pandemic and navigate changes to their everyday routines and activities.
Resources can be found at: https://stemie.fpg.unc.edu/covid-19-resources-families-help-children-understand-covid-19

Grade level: All Grade Levels  
Description: Join the Belle Isle Aquarium Education Team as they guide you through a virtual field trip at the aquarium. Life science worksheets and lesson plans can also be found on their website.
Resources can be found at: https://www.biaquariumstem.org/virtual-field-trip.html

Grade level: Preschool  
Description: PEEP Family Science is designed for parents and their children, especially those served by home visiting organizations. It comes in free, easy-to-use apps, in English and Spanish, that make it fun for families to do science together at home.
Resources can be found at: http://peepandthebigwideworld.com/en/

Grade level: Preschool  
Description: The My Sky Tonight team has created a set of fun, science-rich astronomy activities for pre-K children, as well as supporting resources for educators on how to effectively work with young children and engage them in science practices.
Resources can be found at: https://astrosociety.org/education-outreach/early-learners/my-sky-tonight.html

Grade level: Elementary  
Description: Guppy Guppy Evolution is a storybook app that introduces children to evolution through an animated guppy fish named Gus. By tapping the screen kids can bring Gus and other creatures to life and hear what they have to say about the story of evolution in their stream.
Resources can be found at: http://www.guppyevolution.org/

Grade level: Elementary  
Description: The PLUM LANDING Explore Outdoors Toolkit consists of digital media resources (animated stories, live-action videos, an online badging system, and an app for families), along with hands-on science activities and support materials for parents and caregivers, educators, and program directors. *Note that this project provides some outside activities and may only be useful to those that can still get outside during this time.
Resources can be found at: https://pbskids.org/plumlanding/

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School
Description: Zoombinis is an exciting game in which players solve challenging puzzles as they explore a strange land packed with memorable and quirky characters. Players of all ages use and develop computational thinking skills, which are fundamental to the 21st century.
Resources can be found at: https://edge.terc.edu/display/EDGE/Games

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School
Description: In EcoMOD, immersive virtual environments are blended with hands-on interactive computational modeling tools in order to support the co-development of ecological knowledge, complex causal reasoning and computational creation in third grade students..
Resources can be found at: https://ecolearn.gse.harvard.edu/projects/ecoxpt/

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School
Description: Math Snacks isn’t a curriculum, but a series of activities that can be used with the existing curriculum in grades 3-7 and all products are aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). Math Snacks is a free online resource and includes student materials in Spanish.
Resources can be found at: https://www.mathsnacks.org/

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School, High School, College, Adult
Description: The Merlin Bird ID app works like magic to help you identify birds—but it’s based on science. Answer five questions about a bird you saw, then Merlin shows you a list of best matches, customized to your location and time of year.
Resources can be found at: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org

Grade level: Everyone
Description: By bringing field biology into living rooms, people of all walks of life will be able to observe and explore the natural world together, synthesizing new knowledge for science. Watch the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's live streaming Bird Cams, witnessing the lives of birds unfolding up close, often in surprising ways, along with many other people around the world. Also on Cornell lab site, find resources in their Bird Academy, including online Bird Games, Videos, and Lectures.
Resources can be found at: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School, High School  
Description: WGBH in collaboration with NASA presents digital media resources you can use to teach topics in K–12 Earth and Space Science. These free resources are organized into four grade bands. Each resource emphasizes engaging students in phenomena related to core ideas and science and engineering practices of the Next Generation Science Standards.
Resources can be found at: https://ri.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/universe/

Grade level: Middle School
Description: BSCS Science Learning and Oregon Public Broadcasting teamed up to develop and test a middle school body systems unit designed for the NGSS: A Medical Mystery. The digital curriculum unit is freely available and received high ratings from an EQuIP review.
Resources can be found at: https://bscs.org/resources/educator-resource-center/a-medical-mystery/

Grade level: Middle School and High School
Description: Through hands-on science activities via the GLOBE Program students participating in GLOBE Mission EARTH get experience collecting real-world data and conducting genuine scientific research. They then share their results in local, regional, international and virtual symposia.
Resources can be found at: https://www.globe.gov/

Grade level: Middle School and High School
Description: TunePad is a free online platform designed to support thriving, youth-driven communities of learners empowered by coding to create and share music. Curricular resources for educators are also available (under the Learn tab) on their website.
Resources can be found at: https://tunepad.live/

Grade level: Middle School and High School
Description: The Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) provides standards-aligned online inquiry science units. Our team is now working directly with teachers to implement, customize, and create web-based distance learning curricula for their students. WISE is free to use and available worldwide.
Resources can be found at: https://wise.berkeley.edu/

Grade level: All Grade Levels
Description: Join the Belle Isle Aquarium Education Team as they guide you through a virtual field trip at the aquarium. Life science worksheets and lesson plans can also be found on their website.
Resources can be found at: https://www.biaquariumstem.org/virtual-field-trip.html

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School
Description: In EcoMOD, immersive virtual environments are blended with hands-on interactive computational modeling tools in order to support the co-development of ecological knowledge, complex causal reasoning and computational creation in third grade students.
Resources can be found at: https://ecolearn.gse.harvard.edu/projects/ecoxpt/

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School
Description: Math Snacks isn’t a curriculum, but a series of activities that can be used with the existing curriculum in grades 3-7 and all products are aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). Math Snacks is a free online resource and includes student materials in Spanish.
Resources can be found at: https://www.mathsnacks.org/

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School
Description: Zoombinis is an exciting game in which players solve challenging puzzles as they explore a strange land packed with memorable and quirky characters. Players of all ages use and develop computational thinking skills, which are fundamental to the 21st century.
Resources can be found at: https://edge.terc.edu/display/EDGE/Games

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School, High School  
Description: WGBH in collaboration with NASA presents digital media resources you can use to teach topics in K–12 Earth and Space Science. These free resources are organized into four grade bands. Each resource emphasizes engaging students in phenomena related to core ideas and science and engineering practices of the Next Generation Science Standards.
Resources can be found at: https://ri.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/universe/

Grade level: Middle School, High School  
Description: This video shows how youth, educators and families can access the SciGirls in Space videos and aligned activities across multiple platforms. SciGirls is an Emmy award-winning PBS Kids television show, website, and educational outreach program that draws on cutting-edge research about what engages girls in STEM learning and careers, with many videos and resources.
Resources can be found at: http://www.scigirlsconnect.org/

Grade level: Elementary, Middle School, High School, College, Adult
Description: The Merlin Bird ID app works like magic to help you identify birds—but it’s based on science. Answer five questions about a bird you saw, then Merlin shows you a list of best matches, customized to your location and time of year.
Resources can be found at: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org

Grade level: Everyone
Description: By bringing field biology into living rooms, people of all walks of life will be able to observe and explore the natural world together, synthesizing new knowledge for science. Watch the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's live streaming Bird Cams, witnessing the lives of birds unfolding up close, often in surprising ways, along with many other people around the world. Also on Cornell lab site, find resources in their Bird Academy, including online Bird Games, Videos, and Lectures.
Resources can be found at: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/

Grade level: Middle School, High School, College
Description: PhET provides fun, free, interactive, research-based science and mathematics simulations. We extensively test and evaluate each simulation to ensure educational effectiveness.
Resources can be found at: http://phet.colorado.edu/

Grade level: Middle School, High School, College
Description: The PhET Interactive Simulations project impacts classrooms around the world through over 130 interactive science and mathematics simulations (sims) and associated teacher resources. Here, we focus on our work to increase the accessibility of PhET sims to support diverse students (including students with disabilities) with features such as sonification. Visit their website to see simulations with accessibility features.
Resources can be found at: https://phet.colorado.edu/en/accessibility/prototypes

Grade level: Middle School, High School
Description: FLEET is a 100% free STEM video game that engages students in the engineering design process through shipbuilding. The game includes a free, flexible curriculum of hands-on science activities that aligns to state curricula for middle and high-school.
Resources can be found at: http://www.navalengineers.org/STEM-FLEET

Grade level: Middle School, High School
Description: Geniventure is a free, online, digital game that engages students in genetics and heredity by saving virtual dragons from extinction. Geniventure is designed to engage students from middle school through higher education, with guidance and reflection facilitated by an instructor. Geniventure is a game that a teacher sets up and shares with student.
Resources can be found at: https://learn.concord.org/geniventure

Grade level: Middle School, High School
Description: This video is an introduction to EarSketch, an online environment for late elementary through college intro to Computer Science classes. Students code to compose and remix music, in a free and online learning environment that contains a curriculum, a code editor, a Digital Audio Workstation, and a sound library.
Resources can be found at: http://earsketch.gatech.edu/

Grade level: High School, College, Adult
Description: The goal of Mozak is to have everyday people with no neuroscience background help create 3D reconstructions of actual neurons, thereby speeding up classification and understanding of these cells. In this, we hope to contribute to the understanding of the human brain as well as diseases that plague it, like Alzheimer's, depression, PTSD, and more.
Resources can be found at: https://www.mozak.science/landing

Grade level: High School, College, Adult
Description: Foldit is a game designed to tackle the problem of protein folding. By knowing more about the 3D structure of proteins (or how they “fold”), we can better understand their function, and we can also get a better idea of how to combat diseases, create vaccines, and even find novel biofuels. Since its release, Foldit has gained over 460,000 players from all walks of life. In fact, the best Foldit players have little to no prior exposure to biochemistry. Most famous for their 2011 breakthrough on an HIV-like virus, we plan to show how Foldit has continued to contribute to valuable research to the present day. Their website also now includes coronavirus puzzles.
Resources can be found at: https://fold.it/

Grade level: High School, College, Adult
Description: This video highlights NSF-funded platforms and tools that broaden awareness of opportunities to engage in authentic scientific research and deepen participation in science and society. Specifically, the SciStarter citizen science platform is discussed as a mechanism to support three audiences, including current and potential citizen scientists (we make it easy to find the right project and track contributions to projects.
Resources can be found at: https://scistarter.org/