Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:

You want to host a STEM career day event for your students, but it just sounds like a lot of work. What are your students even missing out on anyway by not having a STEM career day? I hosted a STEM career day in my 5th year of teaching STEM, and this was the first time I had ever done this event for my students. And I was so bummed that I hadn't put on this event before. Well, what did my students even miss out on? Why was I so sad about it? Let me explain inside this episode. 

Naomi Meredith [00:01:13]:

In the last episode, episode 143, I talked about all the things that you need to do to set up your STEM career day for success. If you haven't taken a listen to that episode, make sure to go back and listen to it after you listen to this one. It's okay if you listen to them out of order. Now, an event like this, when it's something for your entire school, could be a lot of prep work when it comes to all of the little details, the scheduling, making sure everybody knows about it, communicating with your guest speakers, and getting the guest speakers. How do you organize it all on top of all of the lesson planning that you are already doing for your school and even all of those after-school clubs and everything in between? I totally understand and was 100% in your position, but also knew that this was extremely important for my students to experience in elementary. So, while I was planning my STEM career day event, I saved every single thing for you. Yep.

Naomi Meredith [00:02:22]:

I saved every template, system, routine, and even examples of what went on that day so you wouldn't have to go digging and figure it out on your own. You can just plug and play, adapt what you need, and have a successful event in no time. I am spilling all the secrets and letting you steal all my ideas for your own event, and you can find this in my audio workshop at naomimeredith.com/stemcareerdayworkshop. You don't need to join me live. It is audio only, so I will talk you through it in short segments. With all of those templates and all of that planning, you have me in your back pocket, and you will be on your way with this awesome day for your students. This is linked in the show notes for you so you don't miss out on this awesome resource. So, what are you missing out on anyway by not having a STEM Career Day? You don't have to put it on.

Naomi Meredith [00:03:23]:

It's probably not required of you. Why does it even matter? Why should you even do something extra? Who cares? Here's what your students are missing out on. The first thing that they are missing out on by not having a STEM career day is learning how to dream big. Okay. So maybe your kids are dreaming big already about the cool projects that you're doing, but dreaming big in a different way. I had a parent presenter at my STEM career day that I hosted for my students and she's actually a guest on my upcoming kid podcast that will be coming out sooner than later. But she was saying even in that episode that the first Experience that she had at a career day wasn't until early college, and she already had an idea of what she might have wanted to be when she grew up, but she had this experience, this career day experience, and it actually changed the trajectory of the career that she went into her pathway, and because of that career day, this is the job that she is actually doing today and is super passionate about it. Now, thankfully, that experience happened for her.

Naomi Meredith [00:04:37]:

Everything happens for a reason. But what if she had known? You never know. But what if she had known about this career and learned about it at a career day in elementary school? Our kids are already thinking about what they wanna be when they grow up. They're not waiting until college to think about what they wanna be when they grow up. This can definitely change. Absolutely. Jobs are going to change. But even as a little kid, they're not too young to think about the possibilities and the passions and the interests and the things that they might wanna do when they get older.

Naomi Meredith [00:05:20]:

And how cool is that where you're bringing in these different experiences and jobs that they might not have ever heard of and even jobs you might not have even heard of as an adult to help them dream big in these different ways. We're always hearing as teachers, and you are probably told this as a kid, that as teachers, we are preparing our students for jobs that don't even exist yet. And some of those jobs and those careers that are being presented on this day might not exist when your kids get to be older, but it doesn't mean you need not to have them come in. These jobs now that are currently happening are evolving, and they are changing and they are sparking new jobs that your students might be in whether they're ones that are being created or maybe they're they are a job that those students actually create. You never know what it's going to be like. My teachers never told me, hey, maybe one day you could be a podcaster. No. They never said that.

Naomi Meredith [00:06:27]:

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but also I never knew as a kid there were all these other pathways and things that would end up putting me in this position of teaching in a different way with the involvement with technology and all of that. However, I did have experiences that led me to where I am today, so you never know what types of experiences are gonna Spark that passion and that interest for your students, and a STEM career day is a great way to do this. One of the parent presenters Even emailed me after the event, after we sent home all of the thank you notes. And one of the parent presenters sent me this really kind email, and they said, Thank you so much for putting all that work into STEM career day. My son and their cousins are all still talking about it. They were kids at the school. And that was also very sweet of the kids to write thank you notes for you to send them home with my son. They were fun to read.

Naomi Meredith [00:07:26]:

1 kid said, I would consider this a career option as I age. Hope you're enjoying your last couple weeks at the end of the school year. So it's pretty cool to hear that from one of the parent presenters that kids were thinking about what they were saying and presenting to them. The second thing that your students are missing out on by not having a STEM career day is having a different way to connect STEM to the real world. This can often be tricky in the elementary STEM space, thinking about, okay, we're doing these really cool hands-on projects, But how is this connecting to a bigger picture? Because our little kids their worlds are small to them. So, how can we make those STEM projects come to life in a way that actually makes sense? A STEM career day is a really great way to do this. You might even get that question all the time, why are we learning this? What does this have to do with anything? Why is this even important? A ton of my parent presenters, because I had the chance to go around and watch them, so many of them said how they use math and why math is important in their jobs. And so it was really cool to hear parents and their parents, But hearing them say, here's how I use this skill in my job.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:49]:

This is why it's important. Here's how I have to work together with others. Here's how I need to know how to present because I present projects all the time in front of a team and have to share my ideas in a way that makes sense to others. So those tidbits that all of the presenters were sharing were so important. Students had the opportunity to ask them questions about their jobs and the things that they do, and the things that are exciting for them. It wasn't just a set and get kind of day. Kids were able to interact with the presenters in all of these special ways. In one of the presentations, one of the parents is in finance, and she was talking about her job, but then she did an interactive activity where the students had a budget, and then they had to actually figure out where all of the different funds would go And thinking about rent and taxes and all of those things, they did a budgeting game and to see how much money was left over at the end.

Naomi Meredith [00:09:57]:

An absolute real life challenge. She paired it down definitely based on what she does for her job. But this was really cool, too, because in my STEM classroom, We also used a budget when it comes to purchasing Makerspace supplies and where the funds are allocated, how much money have left, how to make returns and get money back and change. So it was really awesome to hear her give this presentation and make it interactive because it definitely reiterated what I was doing in the STEM space, but, also, I know for a fact a lot of those math problems that classroom teachers were doing as well. So this was a really cool way to just really touch upon those real world examples. It's also cool in this STEM career day experience. It's twofold in a way when you're talking about how it all connects to the real world. First, students learn about projects that happen in the real world.

Naomi Meredith [00:10:56]:

So many of the parents shared, hey. This is what I work on in my career. And then they're also learning how the career is supporting the project, so they're hearing about the projects and how the career is supporting the projects. There was 1 session where there was a parent whose company is a STEM company, and her job isn't necessarily a STEM job, but it's supporting the STEM company. So her skills are really valuable in this company where she does marketing for this business and also works on creating content and podcasts and all of those types of things to help support what that company is doing in a STEM space. So that was really cool to hear that type of perspective where Not everything is a STEM job, but there are ways that those kinds of things can collide together based on the passions and the skills that you have. The third thing that your students are missing out on by not having a STEM career day is having a unique opportunity to learn from multiple perspectives. I hate to break it to you, but as a teacher and as a STEM teacher, you don't know everything.

Naomi Meredith [00:12:16]:

And guess what? Neither do I. I definitely don't. I do a lot of research on things, but I don't know everything either. And I can't share everybody's perspective of what they are experiencing in the STEM space. I can't. And oftentimes, there are a lot of people in STEM that we're constantly sharing about, but we're not broadening that perspective from students to learn from. And some of us might not even be sharing about other STEM careers and jobs at all. So this is really helping break out of, okay, I am the teacher in the classroom, I teach STEM, but I'm not the only person who knows about all these things.

Naomi Meredith [00:12:59]:

There are a lot more people out there who are way smarter than me and who can explain these topics and bring them to light in a way I could never dream possible. This type of event is so cool because it really is brought to life. It's in person. Students are learning from industry experts who are doing this in their day to day jobs. These people are doing this all the time, and so they get a break out of here's what I do all day, and you can learn more about it. That is pretty darn cool. Bringing this into your school building really provides that access for students where they were already there at school. It was during the school day.

Naomi Meredith [00:13:42]:

It wasn't an after-school opportunity. If you are in school that day and making good choices, you have to come to STEM career day. It was brought to them. We didn't have to go on a field trip. We didn't have to think about the funding. I planned everything out for them. They literally just had to show up with their classroom teacher. And so when you're thinking about all of those details, that's all inside the workshop for you.

Naomi Meredith [00:14:05]:

So it's all laid out. Not too bad. There is careful planning, but such a cool way for them to learn from people who are doing amazing things every single day. These people that you are bringing in are doing cool things, and they are immersed in this STEM space And they're using those up to date things where I probably don't know about all of them. For example, there was a parent who did a lot of coding in their job. And they were showing the kids how they use Computer coding, so that was actually pretty cool too to see some of the lines of code that he writes, so saying that advanced level of coding. But he was actually showing them how he uses the AI tool, chat g p t, to actually check his code, Make sure there are no bugs in it, and then it will actually give him suggestions on how to make the code better. This is also when chat g p t was, like, a really big buzzword.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:08]:

It Still is, but people are getting more accustomed to it and its capabilities. So not only did kids get to see real life code for a project, and the dad explained what it was and what it's used for and, like, kinda what he does in his job, but then also talked about A real life AI tool and show them how he uses it to check the code. I could not have done that. I never would have thought of doing that. I wouldn't have known how to talk about it. Now I can share about it because I watched it at STEM career day. But even something like That is something I could not give the kids as a teacher. And so it was just so cool where there were moments like this constantly throughout the day where something you never know is gonna stick with a kid, and they might want to explore that more.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:58]:

So It's just so cool that they can actually learn from these people and hear their passion in what they do And it really rubs off of them and helps those kids say, I never knew that was possible. Kids definitely need to see people like them doing amazing things. If we want our kids to get involved in STEM, we need to be providing diverse opportunities for diverse people so they can dream big. We can't wait until middle school or high school to provide opportunities like this. It could be too late. We never know. Better late than never, But why not start it in elementary? If you're thinking, we've never done an event like this, my school hadn't either, But I made it possible where, oh, this is something that we can do in the elementary space. I'm not gonna wait for somebody else to host it for us.

Naomi Meredith [00:16:59]:

I'm not gonna wait for my principal to give me the idea. You need to get it started. Be bold, Get an event like this up and running on the ground, and you'll be so thankful that you did and wish you did it before like I did because I wish that I had done this every single year because it was such a powerful, powerful day. As a recap, here are those Three major things that your students are missing out on by not hosting a STEM career day event. 1st is the opportunity to learn to dream big. Next is connecting the real world to STEM. And finally, students are missing out on that opportunity to learn from multiple perspectives. If you are nervous about all of those details skills, where do you even get started, and how do you fit this all in? I save you so much time inside of my STEM career day workshop, where you get all the planning templates, all of the emails that I wrote, all of the posters, and all the video examples where you don't have to think about this from scratch, you can edit and make this work from your school so that You will have a successful day for your students and an event that they will always remember.

Naomi Meredith [00:18:19]:

You can grab that link in the show notes or jump on in at naomimeredith.com/STEMcareerdayworkshop.