Seeks to Fully Understand Needs of All
For the last several months, the NeoSTEM Ecosystem community has been identifying what it believes to be the greatest unmet needs of students we serve.
Our community has concluded that a top priority is to make STEM opportunities visible and relevant to students, families and the entire community, with a focus on improving black and brown students’ engagement with STEM.
We’re proceeding by designing a public awareness building campaign about STEM and STEM careers. The campaign will be one area of work for NeoSTEM for the coming year.
Please offer your thoughts below about possible aspects of the campaign, including who or what from our community could or should be featured on buses or billboards (or other messaging vehicles) to inspire others to pursue STEM.
In addition to discussing the public messaging campaign, members of the NeoSTEM Ecosystem community Tuesday recommended a process to follow for truly understanding the needs of the communities we serve.
A special work group is being formed to develop those plans and the accompanying report we seek to produce. To join that group, please sign up here and we will be meeting soon to design the outreach.
A few quick reminders:
The deadline for students to apply for for Round 2 of WIR’ED is Dec. 8. Please share the application with any possible students. Learn more about WIR’ED here.
The deadline is Dec. 15. to apply for grants of $250 for doing an event – virtual or live – for Remake Learning Days in May. Please apply here. Learn more about Remake Learning Days here.
Public Awareness Campaign Planning
We are eager for any thoughts you have to help us shape the public awareness building campaign. We will be curating these ideas by the end of the year. Please try to add any additional thoughts on the links below by Dec. 15.
WHO/WHAT INSPIRES?
Please tell us who or what you believe might inspire students to pursue STEM by adding some comments here.
(You will see comments from many who joined the Dec. 1 NeoSTEM meeting. Feel free to continue adding your thoughts.)
For the last several months, the NeoSTEM Ecosystem has identified that many students, especially black and brown students, may not be able to see themselves in STEM careers.
- Our goal is to make STEM opportunities visible and relevant to students, families and the entire community, with a focus on improving black and brown students’ engagement with STEM.
- Over the last several weeks, you have said that this work can take the form of some or all of the following:
- Communications initiative with features of local STEM professionals and students – with an intentional focus on Black and Brown STEM professionals and students.
- Clearly identified and widely communicated STEM workforce pathways, including a concentration on less-familiar STEM career opportunities.
- Widely communicated messaging about the relevance of STEM with a concentration on the importance of science.
- Broadly shared messaging intended to dispel fears of STEM.
WHAT MESSAGING VEHICLES WILL WORK BEST?
The public outreach needs to reach students, families, teachers and our entire community. So, what vehicles might work best? Please add your comments here. (Be sure to open the comments that have already been added.)
HOW DO WE MAKE STORIES ACTIONABLE?
How can we ensure that there are meaningful action steps for students to follow once their interest in STEM is sparked? Please add any thoughts here.