By Gillia Bakie | Foundation Giving Manager
“One of the reasons why I wanted to go on this trip is to see students of color and females, actually in leadership roles demonstrating what they know how to do.” -Dr. Gregory King, Tukwila School District & STEM Learning Tour Ambassador
From the Kitsap Peninsula, to the Puget Sound, the Yakima Valley and eastern Washington, the Washington STEM team travelled across the state to find out what's happening with STEM in communities all over the state. We visited the West Hills STEM Academy where teachers and administrators have made the commitment to incorporating STEM in to all they do. We talked with students at the University of Washington-Tacoma about increasing the diversity of students who enrolls and complete STEM degrees. We listened at the Yakama Nation Cultural Center as students talked about programming and sustainable energy projects for their communities.
The common thread that we saw through our journeys was the high quality STEM education that was available to all of the students we talked to. With the the new school year upon us, we’re ready to get #BacktoSchool to give even more students in Washington great STEM opportunities like this, and we hope you are too.
What does STEM Teaching and Learning Look like in Action?
In the Spring of 2016 we travelled with 80 educators, administrators, community champions and non-profit leaders to take a close look at Common Core and Next Generation Science and the Future Ready skills students will need to succeed in a 21st century world. We’re happy to announce that the experiences on the Washington STEM Learning Tours were captured and distilled into a two part video series.
For more information about the Washington STEM Learning Tours, visit our website.
Engineers & Educators – Building a Future for Every Washington Student
“With the work that I do, everything is an iterative process. There’s always this try, fail, repeat process. And that's just life. If a future workforce came in with that understanding [of failure], that would be awesome.” -Michael Frank of McKinstry.
A big part of our ongoing work in engineering is with our innovative new initiative pilot, the Engineering Fellows Program. Teachers, professional engineers, undergraduate and graduate students have all come together to create one-of-a-kind design challenges for 5th graders in the Yakima Valley and South King County.
These design challenges bring in the expertise of knowledgeable engineers that span the engineering world. These engineering design challenges are not only in-line with the Next Generation Science Standards, but they are rooted in the practices of highly knowledgeable experts in their respective fields.
We sat down with these engineers from McKinstry and Coughlin, Porter and Lundeen to discuss what this process has been like for them and what impact this could have on the engineering world. Check out our blog to hear from them first hand!
ReImagining STEM
In a first-ever partnership, Washington STEM has teamed up with Getty Images and the UK organization, Your Life, to help update and reimagine what STEM looks like to girls, you women and students of color everywhere. In a world where science, technology, engineering and math are becoming more and more integrated into other areas, it’s more important than ever to show these the possibilities that a high quality STEM education can provide.
Pamela Grossman, Getty Images’ Director of Visual Trends gave a talk about the power of images to break down gender stereotypes and encouraged consumers and creative alike to re-picture gender in STEM industries and beyond.
Getty Images is hosting a contest to tackle that challenge. You can read more about the ReImagining STEM photo contest and the event that kicked it all off in our latest blog.
“So many girls, young women and people of color do not see themselves reflected in STEM careers. This campaign is a powerful step forward to allow all of these groups to expand their vision of what is possible and all people to understand and respect the contributions women have made and continue to make to STEM fields.” -Washington STEM CEO, Patrick D'Amelio
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