In What Way Do Sports And STEM Programs Prepare Kids For Life?
Both sports and STEM programs help instill important life skills that your children will need to utilize throughout their adult lives. They can learn these valuable lessons all while they are participating in fun and engaging activities with their peers.
Sports and STEM Promote Team Building
If you’re thinking, of course, I know sports will help my child learn how to work on a team or be a leader, but STEM, won’t they just be working on math or science by themselves? Think again! Especially in programs designed for children and teens, STEM is always a collaborative effort! In both competitive and noncompetitive STEM programs, your child will typically be working in some type of collaborative environment to solve a problem or build something new. In subject areas like robotics, coding, or lab research, your child will always be working on a team to find solutions. From young STEM program participants to working adults, STEM is a very team-oriented field!
Sports and STEM Support Resilience & Acceptance Of Failure
A life skill that is so important for children to learn is how to not be discouraged by failure and learning to try again after a setback. Sports and STEM create an environment where failure is inevitable and expected. Even the most successful athletes and sports teams do not win every game they ever play. Failure is built into the dynamics of being on a sports team. Especially when playing on a team, children and teens can fail and try again together. Similarly, a main component of STEM is experimentation which will typically lead to failure at first. For example, if your child is interested in programming, they will encounter failure while coding fairly often. This failure will become a normalized part of learning rather than a setback they cannot recover from. Having a difficult time overcoming failure is a very common response in children, that’s why getting your child involved in an activity where failure is an accepted and anticipated part of the process.
Sports and STEM Encourage Problem-Solving
When it comes to problem-solving, it’s easy to see how STEM would be beneficial in building that skill. Most of STEM is just problems waiting to be solved.. But sports? Where does problem-solving come in? Actually, participating in sports gives your child opportunities to both problem solve in real-time and see immediate results, as well as, work on long term problem-solving. During games, your child will likely be put into situations where they have to quickly assess different factors of their current environment and make quick decisions based on all of the information they can gather. Between games, players, and coaches will often assess things that went wrong and work together to problem-solve for the future. This allows your child to work on short-term and long-term problem-solving skills.
Sports And STEM Improve Academic Development
Sports have a positive impact on both the mind and the body. We all know that exercise is good for the body and can help keep you healthy. But did you know that being active is also good for the brain? Sports require focus, repetition, memorization, and learning which are all skills that transfer to the classroom. This is why many students that participate in athletics do better academically. The academic benefits of STEM are naturally a little more obvious for subjects like math and science. But the logic and problem-solving skills that your child develops through STEM can be applied to other disciplines as well! So participating in STEM does not only benefit your child in the areas of math and science but the skills behind what they’re practicing can be used in other subjects, as well as, in those core subject areas further along in their advanced education.
Where Can I Find Sports & STEM Programs Near Me?
The Police Activities League of Egg Harbor Township and Atlantic County has a variety of sports and STEM programs year round! If you’re looking to get your child involved while they’re out of school, we have a variety of sports summer camps and STEM summer camps for your child to get involved in. We also have programs available during the school year if you’re looking to supplement your child’s school activities! We have STEM programs like Lego WeDo and Mindstorm EV3. We also have year round sports activities including leagues and family open nights! If you’re interested in learning more about our programs so we can get your child involved as soon as possible, get in touch with us!