The Importance of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in our Classrooms

As a Country, the United States is continually falling behind academically when compared to other Nations. Therefore, the purpose of my Honors Thesis is to enlighten others on the importance of incorporating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) into our classrooms. When students have the chance to partake in hands on, inquiry based lessons, their new knowledge for the subject increases drastically. However, completing STEM lessons in the classroom is a challenging task. For this reason, I have designed a unit's worth of lesson plans, where the unit encompasses science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These STEM lessons are inquiry-based so that students get an understanding that science is a learning process, not just a group of facts to be memorized. The lessons are written in the 5E format, as this format is based on the way human beings learn. I wanted to make this as easy as possible for teachers to bring inquiry-based STEM learning into the classroom. When students are allowed to take control of their own learning and make discoveries for themselves, they are going to realize the excitement that comes with STEM. This will lead more students to pursue STEM careers, thus helping bring the United States back to a competitive level academically.