Adventure Science Center in Nashville, Tennessee
|By Tiffany Farmer Ph.D. Director of Education & Community Engagement
STEM, the acronym that can strike fear in the hearts of educators everywhere, leaving teachers to question, “How can I incorporate science, technology, engineering and math into a single lesson or even a whole unit?”
It’s a challenge we’ve been tackling for over 70 years at Adventure Science Center in Nashville, Tennessee. We dedicate our time and talent to delivering fun, dynamic STEM experiences to families, students and educators from across the country and around the world. Students on field trips can explore over 175 hands-on STEM exhibits and activities, learn science concepts from coding to dissection in one of our many STEM laboratory programs or see 6.5 million stars in one of the nation’s best planetariums.
With over $1 million in new permanent exhibits and upgrades installed over the last year, Adventure Science Center offers a truly first-class experience. Students and educators can explore the art and physics of light at our giant lite bright wall, experience the wonders of the universe in our Space Chase gallery, direct weather patterns and explore topography on our giant digital earth or start a tsunami in our eight-foot wave tank. Each exhibit offers opportunities to learn through experimentation and concepts to take back to the classroom.
We bring science to life, we make it fun and we make it memorable. Imagine exploring the process of digestion, peristalsis and chemical digestion in an exhibit that ends in an unforgettable trip down the colon on a flatulence slide. Then imagine using our take-home resources to model the process using a balloon in your classroom. We know students are better able to remember hands-on experiences and educators can reinforce and build on that learning back in the classroom.
In addition to exploring the science, technology, engineering, and math exhibits at Adventure Science Center, we have a full team of educators with science degrees and a talent for infusing meaning and fun into complex concepts. From in-depth biological dissections to the study of amusement park physics to erecting and programming robots, we offer a wide variety of STEM learning labs that encourage students to get in on the action. Along with educational content and scientific process skills, these labs are designed to enhance 21st century skills like collaboration, critical-thinking and creativity.
If a trip to the science center just isn’t in the cards for you and your students, we’re determined to find a way to help. We offer STEM outreach programs and educator professional development. We partner with Makey Makey Invention Literacy and the award winning Picture-Perfect Science program from NSTA Press, in order to provide nationally-vetted professional development opportunities for educators. If you are specifically looking to up your STEM literacy, the STEM Challenge with Effective Questioning provides a great opportunity to investigate the engineering design process and transform science from a school subject to a lens through which your students view the world.
This is just a glimpse of the innovative world of STEM programs we offer. Come visit us and discover more at www.AdventureSci.org.
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