Making Connections to Support STEM Transitions
Strategy 3
Coordinating between the community and afterschool programs to support community-based STEM opportunities
Making Connections, aims to understand and support transitions and handoffs that remove barriers and connect youth to STEM learning opportunities.
Understanding how to make connections across settings in systematic ways can support the study of, replication, and scaling of strategies for making connections across settings in out-of-school STEM learning.
Strategy 3: Coordinating between the community and afterschool programs to support community-based STEM opportunities
Strategy 3 is about coordinating between the community and afterschool programs to support community-based STEM opportunities (e.g., service learning opportunities like building a park bench or cat houses for an animal shelter lost in a recent flood).
Why would you use this strategy?
Supporting STEM opportunities in their own communities can be a way of connecting youth to civic opportunities and cultivating STEM engagement.
Who would use this strategy?
Networks and programs that need to support the reimagining and rebuilding of the local economy and have strong economic and other cultural and social needs.
“We’re doing a community service project for the cat shelter because a few months ago they had a major flood, and they lost all their toys, all of their cat houses, cat scratch posts, food, everything. So right now we’re trying to make a whole bunch of items for them. We give a lot to our community because we see how much the community does for us.”
-Taryn, SHINE
Target Outcomes
- Youth feel connected to using their STEM/STEAM skills for a greater purpose of making their communities better.
- Communities are strengthened because of youth service learning efforts.
Important Considerations
- Organizations need to coordinate to find a task for which the youth have the tools, materials and support to take on and bring to completion .
- Programs need to be nimble when youth lead projects since they can't define the exact project needs until youth decide on the project's focus.
Design Considerations at the Network Level
- Help coordinate across organizations to make connections between program leaders who might be interested in working together in mutually beneficial ways.
- Support organizations by applying for funding and grants that could financially support their work.
Design Considerations at the Program Level
- Multigenerational trust-building is an ongoing process that program leaders must nurture.
- Provide space for other organizations to maintain individual identities, while offering incentives for physical co-location (e.g., lower cost rent, better access to individuals the organizations serve). *
- All organization members need to be committed to creating a "safe haven" for youth and families (e.g., coaches, teachers, front office staff).
Case Study: “We Want them to Give Back to the Community:” Coordinating Across Settings to Make Community Connections through STEAM in PSAYDN
Schools and Homes in Education Afterschool Program (SHINE)
Asset and action-based service learning projects help youth feel connected to their local communities. When learning experiences are designed with connected civic outcomes at top of mind, youth interests and identities are matched with the needs of a community.
Meaningful service learning within a community requires coordination across settings to identify needs to be met as well as creative ways of addressing those needs through coordinated action.
For SHINE (Schools and Homes in Education Afterschool Program), service learning is an embedded part of their programming model and the way through which they connect STEM to their core values as an organization.
Connections between and across STEM learning settings and experiences can promise to foster meaningful, lifelong STEM learning for youth, yet the detailed and concrete mechanisms for how this learning is connected remains unclear. Little is known about how STEM learning is connected in systematic and sustainable ways.
Making Connections, aims to understand and support transitions and handoffs that remove barriers for youth by connecting STEM learning across ages and settings, ensuring youth interest and motivation persists.
These products are based on research conducted through a collaboration between the Connected Learning Lab at University of California Irvine and STEM Next and their regional partners. It was made possible thanks to the generous support of The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Samueli Foundation.
Strategy three is is one of eight still-evolving strategies, for coordinating and brokering connections across settings in STEM ecosystems. These are intended to serve as tools for making connections across settings to support STEM transitions and unlock academic, workforce-related, and civic opportunities for all youth, especially underrepresented groups like girls, youth of color, and youth from low-income families.
