But what Fortuna experienced as a problem—open-ended play and repeated
failures—is an intentional part of many companies’ STEM play-product
strategies. This highlights the challenge of creating educational toys: The STEM
toy area is new, and there isn’t much expertise to fall back on. Which lessons
need to be taught and the best ways to teach them are still unclear. And how
PXFKDQ\RILWSD\VR̆LQIXWXUHFDUHHUVIRUWKHNLGVZKRSOD\ZLWKWKHVHWR\V
remains to be seen.
FROM IDEA TO REALITY
The term STEM became an academic concept decades ago. Initiatives since the
middle of the last century have encouraged students to study science and math,
and STEM developed during classroom curriculum planning in the 1990s. The
urgency of getting kids interested in the sciences increased in the 2000s. And
ODWHUWKHPRGL¿FDWLRQ67($0DSSHDUHGDGGLQJDQ$IRU³DUWV ́WRWKHVFLHQFHV
$OWKRXJKLW¶VKDUGWRVD\ZKDWWKH¿UVW67(0WR\ZDV'HE:HEHU3K'D
director of early childhood development at Fisher-Price (which is owned by
0DWWHO EHOLHYHVKHUFRPSDQ\FUHDWHGWKH¿UVWRQHVLQ ZKHQLWSDUWQHUHG
with Compaq on computer peripherals designed for 3- to 5-year-olds, including
a keyboard and a car dashboard. But Weber says that as far as today’s STEM
products are concerned, the idea of science learning toys bubbled up from
academia around 2010, and toy makers started releasing STEM toys soon after.