STEM stands for Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This is an academic discipline focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. November 8th is STEM day which brings awareness to the industry that brings revolution to our world.

Fun Fact: Of all peer countries, Finland ranks highest with the greatest amount of STEM graduates. Over 30% of university graduates come from related programs. Canada is sitting at 12th out of 16 with 21.2%.

In recent years, there has been a push for increasing women and youth within STEM industries. When looking at gender within STEM, it’s important to differentiate between Persistence in STEM and representation in STEM. Representation is the number of each within the field. Persistence, however, is when those people are within the field for a number of years.

Below are quick statistics from The Pew Research Center, and Statistics Canada.

• Women are less likely to go into STEM. First year STEM students are 44% women while BHASE or non-stem programs like business, humanities, health, and so on are 64% women.
• American employment has seen an increase of 79% since 1990. This has raised from 9.7 million to 17.3 million.
• Among American workers with at least a bachelors degree older than 25, one third (33%) have an undergraduate degree within STEM. However, of those only half are employed in STEM.
• Regardless of the specific field, Canadian women on average graduated faster than men from STEM programs. A quarter (27% ) of women and 16% of men who began in computer and information sciences finished a STEM degree within four years.

The Push for STEM

Although there’s a general disagreement on if the field of STEM needs the push. Throughout the world, there’s been some criticism.

“No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labour market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations that require bachelor’s degrees or higher…Most studies report that real wages in many—but not all—science and engineering occupations have been flat or slow-growing, and unemployment as high or higher than in many comparably-skilled occupations,” explained Micheal S. Teitelbaum, demographer and the former Vice President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation within the 2014 article “The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage” in The Atlantic

Regardless of the criticisms of STEM’s push for involvement, STEM is an important field to bring about the best of humanity. With the world changing as rapidly as it does, this discipline is vital as a front line for human society to evolve and adapt to new challenges.

Honestly blown away by my Grade 8 students’ hard work and creativity with these cell models. The analogies they included in their reports are pretty impressive too! #STEM #STEAM #teaching pic.twitter.com/08X9G2Xjxn

— Vanessa Maville, OCT (@MissMaville) November 1, 2020

Celebrating Stem day on November 8th, Switching Styles is giving 8 STEM-themed covers to bring the science and math sector to life.

STEM Themed Parody Songs

“Lab Rules” by Greg and Mitch of AsapSCIENCE, Originally “New Rules” by Dua Lipa

Fun Fact From The Song: Don’t smell chemicals by sniffing them. It can cause damage to the inside of your nose, the mucus membranes or even your lungs. Instead, hold it away from your face and waft the scent toward your nose.

“CRISPR ” by 8th graders from The Nueva School, Originally “7 Rings” by Ariana Grande

Fun Fact From The Song: CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. These are sequences derived from DNA fragments of bacteriophages previously infected with the prokaryote.

“Dear Future Onion” by Everyday Science, Originally “Dear Future Husband” by Meghan Trainor

Fun Fact From The Song: Plants use the process of photosynthesis to convert CO2 into O2 by using this chemical formula

“We Found Life” by Rockin’ Science Videos, Originally “We Found Love” by Rihanna and Calvin Harris

Fun Fact From The Song directly from its description: Tardigrades are only an average of 0.02 inches long, but can withstand seemingly inhospitable environments such as vacuums, X-rays, temperatures from -328o F to +300o F, and pressure well over 85,000 psi.

“Energy’s Why” by Shameless Science, Originally “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish

Fun Fact From The Song: Energy is the basis of why matter changes form between gas, liquid, water as well as plasma.

“What Makes You Frightening” by Rockin’ Science Videos, Originally “What Makes You Beautiful” by One direction

Fun Fact From The Song: Adult Great White Sharks have a bite force of over 4,000 psi, ten times that of a lion.

“The DNA Song” by Jam Campus, Originally “Fetty Wap” by Trap Queen

Fun Fact From The Song: DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid and is comprised of 1. phosphate 2. nitrogen base, and 3. deoxyribose.

“Part Of Your Lab” by Florence Schechter, Originally “Part of Your World” from “Little Mermaid”

Fun Fact From The Song: Laboratories such as the one in this video research the science of our world. Specifically, the GDSC researches how cells respond to damage to their DNA and then researching how those specific responses can be implemented in diseases and genetic disorders.

Tag Switching Styles on Twitter with your favorite fun facts @styleswitching