Oct. 20, 2011, marked a celebration throughout the nation of the amazing service that afterschool programs provide every day after the school bell rings.  Celebrating its 12^th year, the Lights on Afterschool rally provides an opportunity for communities to highlight the importance of afterschool programs in their area.  This year several sites chose to showcase the work that they do in STEM learning. I had the privilege of getting a firsthand look at some of the amazing programming being offered in Brevard County, FL, in which students can participate in the Zoo Explorers or Space Explorers programs which cater specifically to engaging youth in science fields.  The Zoo Explorer program allows youth to learn more about wildlife as well as native species.  The Space Explorers program provided participants with an opportunity to learn more about the work being done in their own backyard at the Kennedy Space Center.  The program takes place in the Astronaut Hall of Fame where they get to go on simulated missions and learn about the fundamentals of space exploration. The celebration on Oct. 20 included the lighting up of the Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex.  Students from the program at Coquina Elementary School had the opportunity to speak with former astronaut Jon McBride.

STEM was also on the minds of several business leaders, government officials and community members in Camdenton, MO, who met for a summit on Oct. 21, 2011, as part of their Lights on Afterschool week-long celebration.  Dr. Ina Linville, University of Missouri Extension 4-H program director, noted that, “the characteristics of quality afterschool environments include having sustained relationships with caring adults, activities that expand students’ horizons and holding their interests and a positive peer group.“  The summit also gave an opportunity for afterschool program staff, participants and parents to share their experience in their programs.  The full article about this summit can be found here.

 It has been one amazing year in California’s afterschool world and STEM.  Twelve months ago you would rarely hear STEM being talked about.  Now there is a buzz and excitement as things are beginning to take off throughout the state.  So what happened to bring about this change?  I was fortunate enough to take part in a workshop hosted by the Missouri Afterschool Network, which was well on its way to launching its exciting STEM initiative. Fortunately for me, one of their funders was also in the audience.  I was able to talk with him right after the workshop and asked if he would be interested in doing something like this in California.  Not only was he excited about the potential of reaching the afterschool programs in California, he was willing to talk to some other private funders to see if they would also be interested in this project. This was the birth of the California STEM In Out of School Initiative.  

We spent the next year gathering all of the important players who we felt should weigh in on the design. A visioning group of more than 30 leaders throughout the state met quarterly to set the “vision” of such an initiative while our partners at Lawrence Hall of Science did an extensive mapping of all the STEM related resources in California. Another workgroup looked at messaging and communication while another team explored professional development and curricula and the design of a Virtual Innovation Center.  Dr. Deborah Vandell from University of California, Irvine was responsible for developing the evaluation. Collectively, all of this work came together to form a three-year strategic plan for taking STEM in out-of-school time to scale in California.  In the next few weeks we will be submitting a proposal to our private funders for three years of funding.

 On Sept. 15 at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the Fourth Digital Media and Learning Competition was announced to help develop Badges for Lifelong Learning.  The competition, sponsored by the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) in collaboration with Mozilla and support from The John D. and Cathrine T. Macarthur Foundation, aims to create digital tools “that support, identify, recognize, measure, and account for new skills, competencies, knowledge, and achievements for 21st century learners wherever and whenever learning takes place.”  The vision is to create a digital badge system in which individuals can display knowledge learned and skills acquired through various institutions including afterschool programs and informal learning settings.  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke at the event to encourage efforts to find innovative ways to assess learning among students and teacher professional development.  NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. and Julia Stasch, vice president of U.S. programs for the MacArthur Foundation, both also addressed event attendees.  

During his presentation, Executive Director of Mozilla Foundation Mark Surman laid out how a badge system would work and cited Foursquareand stackoverflow.com/badges as examples.  These popular social media services provide digital badges for frequenting places and answering Web development questions, respectively.  Surman also shared Mozilla’s platform for digital badge display, Open Badges, which would allow individuals to aggregate all of their badges and package them in a way that can be presented in profiles across the Web.  iRemixwas another example used, which provides a platform for students to attain badges for digital literacies gained in afterschool programs.

 The National Science Teachers Association  (NSTA), along with the STEM Education Coalition and other national groups hosted the two-day K-12 STEM Education Policy Conference last week in Washington, D.C.  The conference consisted of three panels, each offering insight into current STEM education policy from a different perspective: the Administration, Congress and external stakeholders.

The first panel was moderated by Tom Guetling of Delta Education and featured Michael Lach, Special Assistant for STEM in the US Department of Education, and Steve Robinson, Special Assistant in the White House Domestic Policy Council.  The recurring theme of the discussion was that the Department of Education deals with the entire education system, particularly focusing on:

1)      Capacity building
2)      Motivation and inspiration
3)      Making sure the educational system is connected to other institutions (labs, businesses, universities, etc.)

Robinson reiterated the importance of STEM education and how President Obama and the Administration has been promoting the importance of getting youth excited about math and science.  Policy at the federal level has been manifested as priorities in competitions for grant money.  This includes the STEM priority in the Race to the Top funds and the Investing in Innovation grants.  After brief remarks from both panelists, the audience got a chance to ask questions.  Most questions revolved around professional development and identifying effective teachers.  The panelists deflected many of these questions, saying that the federal government should not be driving these issues and it would be better for state and local authorities to determine solutions.  In response to a question about how to include out-of-school-time partners such as afterschool programs in solutions to improve STEM education, they stated that the issue of strong and meaningful impact assessments are a major stumbling block for the informal science education field.

The second panel consisted of three Congressional staffers: Bess Caughram, Minority Staff, Science and Technology Committee; Peter Zamora, Office of Sen. Bingaman; and Chris Gaston, Office of Rep. Rush Holt. The Congressional panelists suggested that the most compelling argument to build Congressional support for prioritizing STEM education policy is highlighting the need for a skilled workforce and how it connects to jobs in their hometowns.  They remarked that issues of equity and morality around STEM education do not appear to resonate as much as framing the issue in economic terms.  But they did advise the audience that anecdotes and personal stories carry a great deal of weight and should be part of the conversation with Members of Congress.

 In late 2010, the Afterschool Alliance surveyed over 1000 Afterschool Program Directors and STEM coordinators to better understand the current state and needs of STEM programming in afterschool programs.  The results of the survey clearly show a widespread desire to offer STEM activities while identifying funding, partnerships, and professional development as valuable resources in providing high-quality STEM programs.  

Click on the image below or here to check out some of the results from our survey to get a better understanding of the current state of STEM in afterschool as well as the needs of the community as identified by the survey respondents. 

Time, money and training are required to provide deeply enriching STEM programs and this correlates with the needs of afterschool programs in providing high quality activities.  It is important to maintain the strong networks in place but also bring in other STEM-focused groups including federal agencies and businesses as partners to provide both expertise and a source of funding.

Afterschool programs are trying to find meaningful and engaging STEM activities for their participants but currently lack the resources and training to fully achieve their goals.  Putting in place state and national policies to increase partnerships and collaboration among various STEM-focused organizations can help reduce the cost and learning curve associated with implementing more engaging programs.  Increasing STEM activities in afterschool programs is an opportunity to provide meaningful enrichment for children and youth outside of the classroom setting to explore and grow academically and beyond. The diversity of participants in afterschool programs provides an amazing opportunity to the populations who are often left out of the STEM pipeline. Now that we know what the state of STEM in afterschool looks like, we need to ask ourselves how we can equip the afterschool community to better serve their participants.