From Wearables to Wow-Factor: United Way Gears Up for STEM-Powered Summer Camps
This summer, STEM is suiting up—and so is United Way! Twenty energetic facilitators came together in early April to experience a hands-on STEM Playbook professional development session like no other, and let’s just say… if you didn’t sweat, laugh, or shout “My pulse rate is HOW high?!”—were you even there?
So, What Is STEM Playbook?
STEM Playbook is a high-energy, challenge-based learning experience that brings science, tech, engineering, and math into the world kids love most: sports. Whether it's coding a winning play, engineering better gear, or tracking real-time heart rate data like an NFL combine, STEM Playbook makes learning active, real, and ridiculously fun.
This summer, United Way will roll out four themed weeks of programming for youth, each tied to sports and STEM career paths—think sports medicine, data analysts, and safety engineers. But first, it was the grownups’ turn to play.
PD Like You’ve Never Seen It Before
Using a facilitator guide that mimicked the actual student experience, we didn't just talk about the program—we became the learners. Here’s how it went down:
Design Thinking in Action
We walked through the Design Thinking Process—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test & share—by solving a real-world challenge: “How might we help athletes monitor their health using wearable technology?”
Each team:
Guessed their own heart rate before testing it using pulse oximeters
Built mini “wearables” out of foam and tape
Compared how sports like basketball and football impacted HR
Created solutions to common athlete challenges like hydration, overheating, and endurance loss
Creativity flowed as teams pitched ideas like an earpiece for joggers and a “smart wrist coach” that measures muscle building.
Break Time… But Make It STEM
Midway through the session, we hit the brakes—and fired up a Connect Four video game where your body is the controller! That’s right: no joysticks here. Using motion-sensing tech, teams battled it out by waving, jumping, and reaching to drop tokens into the virtual board. It was part brain break, part human joystick, and 100% lively entertainment.
Aside from the fun, it also sparked conversation around emerging technologies in gaming, fitness, and education—and how motion capture ties back to our wearables theme.
What’s Next?
Each facilitator left with:
A clear understanding of how STEM Playbook works;
Tools to support youth through every stage of the design process;
Confidence using tech like pulse oximeters and guiding sports-based STEM activities…and maybe a few sore muscles from that agility ladder drill.
This summer, students across Northeast Ohio will get the chance to become engineers, analysts, and designers—through the power of play. And thanks to these amazing United Way facilitators, they’ll have mentors ready to spark that curiosity and guide them every step of the way.
Final Score: STEM Playbook – 1, Boring PDs – 0
Stay tuned for photos, student projects, and family showcase moments from all four weeks that will cover topics like STEM of the Human Body, Innovation in Sports, Data-Driven Play, and Design for Impact.
Interested in bringing STEM Playbook to your students or professional development to your educators? Get in touch today.
