National STEM Day

What the day is

National STEM Day is observed on November 8. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and the day encourages students, especially young ones, to explore those subjects. Many schools, libraries and museums run hands-on activities around it, and some listings call it STEM/STEAM Day, with the A standing for the arts.

It is an informal observance, open to anyone who wants to build, measure, code or ask how something works.

Origin and background

Several sources credit MGA Entertainment, the toy company behind the Project Mc² line, with starting the day in 2015 to get young people, and girls in particular, interested in these subjects. The same accounts say November 8 was chosen as a nod to NOV8, a fictional group of young female agents in that brand's stories, whose name is pronounced like the word innovate. Other sites give older or vaguer origins, so the 2015 account is the one most often repeated rather than a documented proclamation.

The acronym itself is older than the day. Educators and U.S. science agencies used the shorthand SMET in the 1990s, and it was reordered into STEM in the early 2000s because it was easier to say. STEAM, which adds the arts and design, came later as teachers argued that creativity belongs alongside technical skills.

The push behind the day reflects a long-running concern about preparing students for fields that rely on these skills, from medicine and computing to construction and energy. Educators often point out that STEM work is rarely done alone. Scientists, programmers and engineers write, draw, present and solve problems in teams, so curiosity and communication matter as much as test scores.

How to take part

• Build something simple at home, such as a paper bridge that holds a stack of coins, and test how much weight it carries.
• Try a kitchen science project, such as growing sugar crystals or watching what baking soda does with vinegar.
• Learn the basics of coding with a free beginner tutorial or a visual programming tool.
• Visit a science museum, planetarium or library program, or look up an event at a nearby college.
• Ask someone who works in a STEM field how they got started, and what a normal day is like.
• Encourage children to take things apart safely, ask questions and write down what they find.