Summer is here and while school may be out, STEM never takes a break. Whether you're hiking a trail, hanging out in the backyard, or road-tripping with the family, the world around you is full of STEM happening in real time. You just have to know where to look.
"The world is a classroom. You just have to step outside."
This summer, we're challenging kids, parents, and educators to turn everyday moments into learning ones. Here's how to spot science everywhere this summer and how to take the curiosity even further with hands-on STEM 101 kits.
🌱 You See: A Garden, a Houseplant, or Something Growing
Whether it's a neighbor's vegetable patch or a weed pushing through a sidewalk crack, plants are incredible engineers. They absorb water and nutrients through their roots, convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis, and regulate their own growth depending on their environment.
🔬 The STEM Connection:
What if you removed the soil entirely? That's hydroponics — growing plants in nutrient-rich water instead of dirt. It's how vertical farms feed cities and how NASA grows food on the International Space Station.
👉 Take It Further:
Our Build Your Own Hydroponic System kit lets kids grow real butter lettuceby building and managing their own system from scratch. No garden, no yard, no problem.
⚡ You See: Power Lines, Solar Panels, or a Lightning Storm
Energy is all around us this summer. Spot a solar panel on a rooftop? That's technology converting sunlight into electricity. See power lines stretching across the highway? Those are carrying electrical current across miles of wire to power homes and buildings.
🔬 The STEM Connection:
All of it runs on circuits — closed loops that let current flow from a source, through a device, and back again. Every piece of technology you use today, from your phone to your fan, started as someone drawing a circuit on paper.
👉 Take It Further:
Our Learn How to Wire Electrical Circuits kit lets kids build real working circuits and yes, things actually light up.
🎮 You See: A Video Game Controller, Keyboard, or Touchscreen
Summer often means extra time for games, music, and creative projects. But have you ever stopped to wonder how a game controller knows when you've pressed a button or how a touchscreen responds to your touch? The devices we use every day rely on electricity, circuits, and engineering to respond to our actions.
🔬 The STEM Connection:
Computers and electronic devices communicate through electrical signals. Conductive materials help electricity move through circuits, allowing devices to detect inputs and perform specific actions. Understanding these principles is the foundation of electronics, robotics, and computer engineering.
👉 Take It Further:
With the Digital Gamepad kit, kids can transform everyday objects into interactive computer controls while exploring conductivity and basic circuits. Test whether a banana, spoon, piece of foil, or other household object can become part of a working controller, then design your own games, inventions, and experiments. It's a playful way to discover how science and engineering power the technology we use every day.
🌡️ You Step Outside and Feel the Heat
Ever notice how asphalt feels scorching but a shaded patch of grass feels cool? Or how some buildings stay comfortable even on the hottest days? That's thermal science: the way materials absorb, retain, and transfer heat differently.
🔬 The STEM Connection:
HVAC engineers — the people who design heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems spend careers thinking about exactly this. How does heat move through a wall? How do you keep a building comfortable when it's 95°F outside? It's one of the fastest-growing fields in the skilled trades, and it starts with understanding thermal science.
👉 Take It Further:
Our Design and Monitor a Building System kit has kids build a model structure and monitor its temperature and humidity conditions, just like a real building engineer would.
🔊 You Hear: Crickets, Water, Wind, or Music
Close your eyes on a summer night and listen. Crickets chirping, waves crashing, a song drifting from a neighbor's backyard. Sound is one of the most overlooked areas of STEM but it's pure physics. Every sound is a vibration moving through a medium, and the pitch, volume, and tone are all determined by the properties of that wave.
🔬 The STEM Connection:
Musical instruments aren't just art. They're precision-engineered objects. The tension of a string, the shape of a hollow body, the length of a tube — every physical choice changes the sound that comes out. The math behind it is the same math behind concert hall acoustics, noise-canceling headphones, and sonar.
👉 Take It Further:
Our Build Your Own Ukulele and Build Your Own Speaker kits let kids engineer sound themselves, building instruments and audio devices that actually work.
Curiosity Doesn't Take a Summer Break
The best summer learning often starts with a simple question.
Why does that plant grow faster than the others? How does a touchscreen know where you tapped? Why is the sidewalk hotter than the grass? How does a speaker turn electricity into sound?
Moments like these are opportunities to explore, experiment, and discover together.
STEM 101 kits are designed to help families turn curiosity into hands-on learning. Whether you're looking for screen-free projects, enriching summer activities, homeschool resources, or simply a fun way to spend time together, there's a kit that brings STEM concepts to life.
STEM is already happening all around you. The next step is giving kids the chance to explore it for themselves.
