From Becky Tapley, STEM Math Education Specialist (pronouns: she/her/hers) at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance:
As we step into the month of December tomorrow, I wanted to send some resources your way to help you reflect on the activities you may engage your youth with this season.
The first article has excellent thoughts about ways to build awareness, representation, and sensitivity into your December planning:
Some highlights are these 4 tips:
-Don’t Assume, Stereotype, or Tokenize
-Build Diversity into Your Lesson Plans
-Think Outside the Usual Holiday Cliches
-Consider Forms of Inclusion Outside of Religion and Culture
One topic that is brought up in that article is to include some STEM projects. “Holiday STEM projects offer more great ideas since they often focus on things like winter weather that can be examined outside of a cultural or religious context.”
Check out Howtosmile.org and search for topics your youth are interested in.
One example: How Animals Stay Warm: https://www.howtosmile.org/resource/smile-000-000-002-092
From snowflakes, to penguins, to winter data collection: http://mathwire.com/seasonal/winter05.html
Winter Math and Science Snow connections: https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/lindsey-petlak/winter-math-and-science-can-be-snow-much-fun/
I hope these give you some ideas on how to make your December activities and celebrations inclusive and engaging!