January 2023 ~ STEM Planning 2023!

 Planning forward for Spring 2023!

Welcome to the new year and a new season of STEM talks!  If you are like me, you might be breaking out that new 2023 planner and have already started color coordinating your dates, meetings, summer camps, and maybe even a vacation squeezed in there somewhere?

I'd say most of us like to plan ahead, and if you're a teacher (or parent), you are always looking ahead to the next scheduled thing to keep your kids learning and having some fun along the way.  

I'm a big fan of planning ahead, so below I've put down a couple ideas for classes, activities, and just plain fun things to do that might take just a little planning beforehand to accomplish!

 Chicken Embryology 101

Growth Stages
One of our most popular spring projects. Learn about life cycles while you watch and learn through a real classroom hatching experience.  Classes receive 12-18 fertilized eggs, an incubator, and all hatching supplies.  The cycle typically extends 21 days from fertilization to birth, during which students learn about parts of the egg, chicken breeds, candling, building a hatchery/farm, and sometimes even have a dissection in class.  

This activity will require up to 4 active weeks of study, so courses should be booked in advance to reserve both incubators and time slots that work for your class situation. 

Speaking of Eggs...

A fun experiment you can do at home over the course of a week or so is to create shell-less eggs.  Using eggs, vinegar, and time, explore the properties of acid base reactions coupled with osmosis.  Over about a week, youth can watch their eggs outer protective casing dissolve, and what's underneath remain.  Make sure to make 4-6 eggs at once so you can use a couple for a bounce experiment and save the others for your osmosis trials.  Can you grow or shrink your eggs?  Can you then make it go the opposite direction?

Our experimental instructions can be found by following this link: Shell-Less Eggs  

What else should we plan ahead for?

Other things to think about as the days get longer are:

  • Nature Trips:  Plan out a place to go on a nature hunt.  Do pre-trip prepping by putting together a supply list, emergency kit, and a goal for the visit.  
    • Sketch Wildflowers
      Maybe you want to chart wildflowers?  Research when flowers naturally start sprouting in your trip area, talk to an expert, plan how you want to capture this event (photos, sketching, pressing, etc..)
    • Maybe your goal is environmental?  Take plastic bags and gloves on a trip to your local park and pick up trash around the area.  We all can do our part to clean up!
    • Farm Days! Probably my favorite trip of the season! Connect with your local ag people to give youth a farm tour and better understanding of where most of our products start out.  A good pre-visit activity is to pick an everyday item and have youth trace it's "origins" back to the farm.  
  • Library Visit:  When was the last time you went to the library?  Note that many library's have youth development programs on special days or weekends.  Give your local branch a call and find out what activities they have going on for your littles. 
  • STEM Camps:  In our region, we have several STEM camps that take place throughout the year.  It's always a good idea to give your local Extension office a call to find out what youth activities they might be offering throughout the year.  Get on their email list or like their Facebook page to keep in the loop!
  • STEM Kits:  Just a reminder to check out our expanding local resource of STEM Learning Kits available for check-out through our website.  We have just added kits base around Electricity and Soil Pigments.  Click here to see our website! - TRA Extension
Just a couple of suggestions as we prep for spring and pre-summer learning!  Until next time - Keep on STEMing! 

STEM Energy Workshop in Gunnison, CO

STEM Energy Traveling Trailer


I am a STEM/k12 Educator with Colorado State University Extension. I love working with youth and encouraging them to participate in many forms of hand on education! Overall, our goal is to promote positive youth development and encourage youth to pursue higher education after high school.

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