Everyday STEM Saturday - November 2026

Everyday STEM Saturday is a monthly, hands-on STEM enrichment program designed to help middle school students explore technology by solving practical problems, building prototypes, and learning through experimentation. The November–January sessions form a connected learning journey: responsible automation, creative coding, and robotics. Each session is designed for beginners, so no previous coding or electronics experience is required.

Students will use the Engineering Design Process (EDP), participate in Executive Functions & Mental Performance activities, complete a mini-challenge, test and improve their work, and reflect on STEM career connections. A small cybersecurity connection will be woven into each session to reinforce privacy, safe access, data protection, and responsible use of technology.

• Theme and description: Students explore how automated devices use inputs, rules, and outputs to perform tasks. They will build a simple smart-helper or smart-room prototype and examine how technology-related decisions can affect people. Through fictional examples, students consider fairness, privacy, accuracy, and when a human should review a decision. The cybersecurity connection focuses on collecting only necessary data and limiting access to device information.
• Driving question: Program a device to respond to an input, then review a fictional automated recommendation and suggest a safeguard or human-review step.
• Mini challenge: Program a device to respond to an input, then review a fictional automated recommendation and suggest a safeguard or human-review step.

Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W

Each session is designed for beginners, so no previous coding or electronics experience is required.