STEM is in every moment of your day, even when you don't notice it. There’s chemistry in the breakfast you cook, engineering in the roads you travel, and electricity in the sky during a storm. You’ll see science everywhere once you start looking for it – here's a few examples.

Culinary Chemistry

Every meal you make is powered by chemistry. Take the popcorn here at Challenger, for example: when a kernel heats up, the water inside turns to vapor. As pressure builds, the steam bursts through the shell and creates that familiar “pop". That's science in action. You're also practicing chemistry when you fry treats like churros. Water rapidly converts to steam when the dough hits the hot oil, expanding the pastry to make the churro’s hollow center.

Cooking is full of reactions like these, including browning, boiling, melting, and baking. Now, you can think of each one as a tiny science experiment right in your kitchen.

Roadway Engineering

Every road you travel is the result of careful engineering. Asphalt is a precisely designed blend of crushed rock, sand, gravel, and a binder that holds everything together. Engineers test these mixtures to understand how they respond to environmental factors so that roads stay safe and durable. Special GPS equipment, lasers, and weight sensors are now also integrated into roadway engineering.

Scientific innovations like this help create a network of roads that will withstand heavy use over many years, all thanks to the engineering you rarely notice beneath your tires.

Electric Lightning

Lightning is one of nature's most dramatic examples of STEM in action. Strong electric fields accelerate electrons inside a storm cloud, causing them to collide with molecules like nitrogen and oxygen. As electrons multiply, they create the perfect conditions for a lightning bolt to form.

When the electric charge becomes strong enough, it breaks through the air as a massive spark we know as lightning. The bright flash you see is electricity traveling through the atmosphere, heating the air to extreme temperatures and creating thunder.

STEM Is Everywhere

STEM shapes our world in ways you may never notice. The more you learn to spot these hidden science moments, the more you’ll understand how connected we all are to the incredible systems that keep our world running.