The STEM Ed Innovator

December | 2020

STEM the Divide

STEM Ed Update

  • We have launched all 3 Fall Cohorts. The Spring Cohort application is live!

  • We received a number of donations and are on our way to meeting our $10,000 goal of funding a Spring Cohort. Help us raise more awareness!

  • This month’s Alumni survey gift card winner is Kyle Sevits from Boston! 

  • Alumni: apply to become a Mentor Fellow! We will be starting Spring cohorts in February, and are also looking for facilitators for our workshops series starting in January.

  • Our next newsletter will highlight our winter workshop series. Stay tuned!

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Critical STEM Literacy

Critical STEM Literacy is the idea that students are empowered to take action after learning about and reflecting upon contemporary STEM issues that affect their lives. In democratic STEM classrooms, marginalized students move towards the center and engage in a critical subject agency–becoming subject matter experts who leverage their knowledge for small- and large-scale change. In this way, Critical STEM Literacy is much more than a suite of literacy skills students acquire to engage with complex texts. Critical STEM Literacy means that students are "reading" the entire world through a critical lens, looking for opportunities to leverage their STEM skills to create change, big and small.

 

This Washington Post article highlights some of the inequities amplified by COVID-19 in American schools. Including: 

  • A study by McKinsey & Co. estimates the shift to remote school in the spring set White students back by one to three months in math, while students of color lost three to five months. As the pandemic persists the losses are escalating. 

  • Millions of children are still learning from home. This setup privileges children who have quiet places to work, parents at home to help and reliable Internet service.

  • 89 percent of Black students have a device for school; still short of the nearly 93 percent of White students who have devices.

 

These statistics barely scratch the surface, and that is the point. If students do not engage in STEM from a critical perspective or have the opportunity to, they may never understand or believe how the skills of STEM are necessary to address these deep-seated social issues. The ways in which STEM actually exists in the world - the perversion of mathematics to carry out political agendas, the suppression of statistics about environmental racism and public health outcomes when they affect communities of black and brown bodies, the exclusion of non-White people from science and technology companies - is as important to understand as how to balance a chemical equation or find an integral.

 

This is especially true of Computer Science. We often think of rigorous Computer Science courses as prerequisites for participation in the technology workforce. If underrepresented students can develop computing knowledge, then they might work for Apple or Amazon. 

 

This perspective misses a more important opportunity though. A Computer Science education that also develops a student’s criticality - especially for those students from historically marginalized communities - can be a transformative lever of social change. Computer Science education can serve as a catalyst for social justice. 

 

This year #CSEdWeek embodies critical STEM literacy with the #CSforSocialJustice focus as a part of the #CSforGood movement. Remote learning in COVID classrooms is proving how deep inequality runs in our current technology structure. It is, literally, coded into our digital classrooms. If this generation can learn to code for equity, then future generations may be less disadvantaged by disruptions to our education system. Let’s #STEMTheDivide!

 

 

Head:

Computer Science is a gateway to a world of expression, creativity, and unbridled imagination. 

Computer Science Through a Lens of Equity & Social Justice

 

“What I really like about computer science is that it gives me the ability to build anything I choose,” said Tamia, a sophomore at Washington Leadership Academy, an XQ school in Washington, D.C. “It’s a way to be creative without ever being wrong.”

 

 

Hand:

You don't need to be a Computer Science teacher to support your students as they learn to code. 

 

The Constellations Center hosted a series of differentiated workshops for K-12 teachers to help them get ready for CSEdWeek. Check out the Playlist to learn how to support students as they engage in the Hour of Code activities. 

Heart:

"The Public School System, since it was created, was structured to stifle creativity and dismantle this idea of critical thinking. Instead of accepting that, let’s restructure it."

George is a 19 year-old sophomore at Menlo College, computer programmer, diversity consultant, motivational speaker, and mentor. At the age of 13, George began his love for coding at Qeyno Labs Hackathon, an Oakland California based tech company. George then decided to start a tech company at the age of 16 years old, in hopes to help other kids of color gain entry into the tech world as innovators not just consumers.

 

#CSEdWeek2020 Resources

Hour of Code: Join in on the global movement introducing tens of millions of students worldwide to computer science, inspiring kids to learn more, breaking stereotypes, and leaving them feeling empowered. CodeBytes are 20-minute live-streamed mini-lessons to make it easy to give students a small taste of CS. Check out their #CSEdWeek2020  launch video 

 

Engineering is Elementary: Win an Interactive Storybook!  Use EiE’s #CSEdWeek activities and post your student’s designs on social media using hashtags #CSEdWeek and #EiEcomputes for one entry to win the interactive digital storybook Hikaru's Toy Troubles. 

 

Google’s CS First Unplugged: Unplugged booklet offers fun activities your students can complete offline! Check out this step-by-step guide on getting your students started with #HourofCode activities like encoding emojis.

 

Minecraft: Help your students take their first steps into #ComputerScience with the new #HourOfCode: A Minecraft Tale of Two Villages. This lesson is free to play on Windows, Mac, iPad, and Chromebook.

 

Mouse: Encourage students to create @scratch impact games that do #CSforGood and #CSforSocialJustice in the latest Holiday Microproject competition! 

 

Flipgrid:Learn how to code a story, watch how AI fights against Covid-19, and chat with the Flipgrid team during a virtual field trip.

Feeling empowered to #STEMtheDivide? Apply to the Spring Fellowship or become a Mentor Fellow! 

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