My STEM/STEAM Sources and Tools

As a final step to closing down my 30 STEM Links email newsletter, and after publishing a kids computing magazine the past dozen years, I want to share my sources and tools. They might be useful for teachers, librarians, parents, kids, and really anyone interested to explore science, technology, engineering, art, and math. This is what works for me. Your mileage will vary, of course.

Bare links to all resources are at the bottom of this post.

Tools I Used (and still use)

While I’m not the best whizziest internet researcher alive, I have found a few tools and processes that generate a lot of useful interesting STEM/STEAM articles.

My primary tools to collect stories in a nearly endless stream of stories:

The Flipboard phone app collects stories from a variety of sources. You can flip from story to story. Or click a news source name like Ars Technica and filter stories by the source.

Google News links to news outlets with their stories organized by topics.

In both cases, I did not log in. This is a critical detail. Once you create an account in Flipboard or Google News, what you see depends on what you saw in your past use of these tools. Not logging in only limits what you see to what you do in your current session. In my experience, not logging in led to better more diverse stories. I used both apps on my phone when I had downtime. Usually on trains but sometimes taking a break from work or waking up in the middle of the night.

When I found stories using my phone app, I used the Share buttons in these apps to share the headlines, links, and full articles to two apps:

Ulysses is useful for writing articles and collecting links in one place. I shared story headlines and links to a folder in this app. Then used the laptop app to write.

I shared full articles to Instapaper. It’s a great app and website to read articles that I’ve saved from Flipboard, Google News, and other places like my laptop browser.

The Instapaper website also lets me export all my saved story URLs to an Excel file as a backup. When possible, I also happily pay for software. It’s one way to help reduce the risk software goes end of life and disappears.

My Sources

I debated how to share actual links here. I created a web browser bookmark HTML file that you can import into your web browser. And if you want to scan and read articles on your phone, I also created an OPML file that you can import into an RSS reader like Feeder.co. I looked at a few readers and Feeder.co offers the best value and ease of use, for my needs. Using Feeder.co helps me eliminate receiving 90%+ of email newsletters I receive. It also makes it easier for me to scan new articles.

Importing web browser bookmarks should be mostly easy: find the browser settings dropdown, usually at the top right of the screen, then find a Bookmarks settings link, then find the Bookmarks Manager link. That’s the easy part. With Firefox, you have to click the the Import/Export button which is an up/down arrow at the top of their manager popup. And the 30 STEM Links folder will sort to the bottom of your bookmarks: maybe select then drag them to a position that works for you. Here’s instructions for importing browser bookmarks in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

Importing the OPML file into Feeder.co is fairly easy. Once you create an account, then you click the Library button on the left edge of your browser. Then click the Import/Export tab in the Library workspace that displays.

I’ve created a zip file that contains both the web browser bookmark HTML file and the RSS OPML file. The 30 STEM Links bookmarks folder includes links to this post and the post with 125 Sunday STEM links (see below).

Photos

On the off chance you also wondered where I got free photos to use in the magazine and newsletter, I used Flickr (for the Any License dropdown, select the Commercial Use & Mods Allowed option) and Unsplash (for the License dropdown, select Free). The US Library of Congress also has free photos. Whatever you use, definitely put author and source details in your image file names, web pages, and wherever you publish an image.

Sunday Links I Never Published

Also be sure to browse the 125 Sunday STEM Links I Never Published post. I collected these links for the Sunday emails but never published them. Fun stuff like a rocket engine powered by cow dung, ancient Mayan cities, wisdom teeth, whales talking, why the ocean is salty but lakes aren’t, and much more.

Questions?

You’re welcome to email me at with any questions.

# # #

Tools I Used (and still use)

My Sources

Photos

Sunday Links I Never Published

Links

Flipboard

Google News

My STEM Resources Bookmarks and RSS OPML File

Feeder.com RSS Reader Site/App

Importing Web Browser Bookmarks

Photos

Questions?