What are STEM Habits?

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STEM Habits

This platform is specially built to recognize and cultivate the habits that promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) culture in the society.

Each project we publish here will be mapped to specific STEM habits, and those who complete the project will be credited by awarding the specific badges. If you are interested in designing projects, you are invited too! Some of you could become referees of these projects and could grant badges to participants or design projects by becoming Staff (organizers) of this platform.

What are STEM Habits?

Example of a STEM Habit:

It is often said that a scientist is required to have keen observation. Even if we understand what keen observation means, we cannot expect we will develop this capacity. Observing a phenomenon for a longer period does not make one a keen observer. When we see an object, if we look for its properties, say its size, weight, shape, color, location, texture, etc. and compare it with other known objects, we develop this ability. Doing this once is not enough. We need to use this ability when we speak, write, discuss, and argue. When we do this a couple of times in multiple contexts, it could become a habit. Thus though we observe using our senses, observation does not happen only through senses, but only when we have a vocabulary to characterize the experience and use it in our everyday life, as a culture.

Habits
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Badges

We grant two kinds of badges: for recognizing COOOL Habits and for STEM Habits. COOOL habits are about how civil and collaborative we are, while STEM habits are required for becoming proficient STEM practitioners.

Whenever participants display proficiency in any of the following STEM habits a corresponding ā€˜badgeā€™ will be granted. Most of these badges can be granted multiple times to participants. For some badges, we have well-defined criteria. As in any game, our refereeā€™s decision is final. Referees decision may not always be perfect, but they canā€™t go wrong all the time. There is always another chance. However, you can politely seek a badge if you think you deserve it, as long as you seek this in a public space. We do not encourage private negotiation with our referees.

Badges
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Please visit the Badges page to get a glimpse of what they are and what criteria are used for granting them.

https://metastudio.org/badges

You can use the reply button below to seek clarifications on this topic.

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Why only to ā€œsubstantiate or supportā€?
Regards.

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Essentially the idea is that citation habit is established. Research Writer is not a good name. Let us think of a better name for those who cite. Can you suggest one?

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Too many badges make it confusingā€¦ And conjuring up so many names makes it more so. Must we have a badge for every habit? Would it be better if habits are grouped (not necessarily into disjoint collections) and a badge is given for each such group?

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  1. Why do we use ā€œhabitā€, instead of ā€œskillā€ or ā€œtraitā€ here?
  2. Most of these habits are valuable in most fields. They donā€™t seem to be specific to STEM, or to education or to research even. I take it to mean that while the name refers to STEM, the platform will cater to a wider audience through by and large generic content. Is my understanding correct?
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It is merely a choice we have to make. ā€œSTEM Habitā€ as a term is more cool than ā€œSTEM Skillā€ or ā€œSTEM traitā€. Also, it reminds us that we have to make it a habit of our life, rather than in a school or college.

Again you are right. This endorses our view that STEM habits are universal to all domains of life.

Having said that, some habits are more specific to STEM, e.g. rigor, quantitative thinking, seeking evidence, reasoning ā€¦ We will eventually give more value to them, since they will be part of most of the projects.

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