Utah STEM Action Center

A huge shoutout to our STEM Best Practices prize sponsors! We had so many amazing companies donate prizes, including our grand prize from ! Get Away Today donated two $500 travel certificates - one for each of our conference locations - that can be used toward any destination or park tickets they offer (airfare excluded).

We're looking forward to our STEM Best Practices Conference in Price tomorrow! We'll see you there.

Educators: pre-register to participate in the NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration TechRise Student Challenge with your students this fall. You could win $1,500 and technical mentorship to build an experiment to fly on a NASA-sponsored high-altitude balloon flight! Learn more:

Future Engineers :: NASA TechRise Challenge The NASA TechRise Student Challenge empowers teams of sixth to 12th-grade students to design, build, and launch experiments on flights aboard commercial suborbital vehicles. Guided by an educator, student teams affiliated with U.S. public, private, and charter schools can submit experiment...

We have a few spots left for our Fabric Forge summer camp, July 13-17. In this camp, kids ages 8-15 will take on beginner sewing projects, such as bags and small characters, like those pictured. This camp will build skills, inspire creativity, and teach them how engineering plays a role in textiles.

Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/camp-innovate-fabric-forge-tickets-1983119512847?aff=odcleoeventsincollection

Camp Innovate 2026 Spend summer with us at the STEM Action Center's Innovation Hub! Registration is now open for our 2026 camps and programs!

We are so excited to welcome our 2026 STEM Best Practices Conference keynote speakers: Erin Welsh, PhD and Erin Allmann Updyke, MD, PhD. They host the popular podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You. Their goal is to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and everyday understanding. Erin Welsh is a disease ecologist and epidemiologist and Erin Allmann Updyke is also a disease ecologist, epidemiologist, as well as a Family Medicine physician.

"The Erins" are our keynote speakers for our Ogden conference on June 30. Registration is filling up quickly; register and learn more here: https://stem.utah.gov/educators/programs-events/stem-best-practices-conference/

Applications are open now for our mySTEM program! This program engages students in STEM through service learning, student-led projects, and connections with STEM professionals. Students receive support from the STEM Action Center through mentors as they work to solve real-world problems and participate in citizen science opportunities.

This program is for students in grades 6–12. Apply by August 15 to join the 2026–27 mySTEM Scholar cohort: stem.utah.gov/mystem/

From making your own costume to inventing your own board game, we have some awesome summer camps with spots still open!

Sign your kids up for our new Camp Innovate Mini camps (four day camps), where they'll meet new friends, learn new skills, and do hands-on maker activities.

Jewelry camp is for ages 8-15 and Board Game Studio and Character Craft are for ages 10-17. The cost is $120. Visit our Eventbrite page and sign up today! https://www.eventbrite.com/o/utah-stem-action-center-54456081773

You can also find more STEM summer camps on our website here: stem.utah.gov/students/summer-camps

Learn how to build a working light bulb from scratch in just 30 minutes using simple materials and hands-on engineering. June's featured Tinker Time project explores the science of electricity and the invention of the light bulb! More Tinker Time spots will open next week.

Check out our current openings for Hub classes and Camp Innovate on our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/utah-stem-action-center-54456081773

The Utah State Board of Education and Google for Education are offering professional development around artificial intelligence (AI) for K-12 and higher education educators. These trainings are FREE and open to all educators, thanks to support from Google for Education. The summer trainings will cover integration of AI across infrastructure, in classrooms, and in policy.

Learn more and sign up here: https://sites.google.com/schools.utah.gov/aitraining2026/home