52 Weeks of Stem at Your Library

I am really enjoying my first #PLA2016 conference. Today I attended “52 Weeks of STEM at Your Library”presented by The Heathers (Heather Love Beverly and Heather Thompson) of Cook Memorial Public Library District. As Teresa mentioned, they have a great blog (STEMinLibraries.com) that outlines their successes in STEM programming and fabulous ideas to get us started incorporating this into our own libraries. In addition, they shared a lot of other tips and tricks for those of us who might be just a *little* intimidated by the idea.

• Rule of Three: When attempting an experiment, measure how long it takes you to complete it. Then, multiply that times three. That is how long you should expect it to take during the program.
• It is ok to say “I don’t know.” This can be used as an opportunity to say, “After the program, let’s go look it up!”
• The programs they list on their blog can be adapted for different age groups. They even give you tips on how to do so!
• Any questionable tasks should be performed by the programmer. The obvious, like hot glue. The not-so-obvious, like pouring vegetable oil.
• Group work is a great skill for kids, just be prepared to do a lot of encouraging.
• There are some things that may prove surprisingly problematic for your young patrons, such a touching dirt with bare hands or blowing bubble solution out and not in or even tying a knot.

And lastly, that if the experiment doesn’t work out, that’s why it was an experiment. As one of the attendees said: Failure is a part of science.

Additionally, one of the vendors, StarNet (www.starnetlibraries.org) stopped by to comment at the session and I took a walk to go visit them. They have some pretty impressive partnerships with some great projects coming down the pipe. Keep an eye on them to help bring innovation to your library!