Our Journey

Commitment Statement Coming Soon

By 2027, we commit to supporting at least 3,500 preK-12 teachers through professional development, instructional coaching, and community-building, in ways that ensure all students feel as if they belong in science and in the outdoors. Some of our most intensive, long-term work takes place in local, historically Black communities, as well as schools in which the majority of the student population identifies as from a historically marginalized or oppressed group. The learner-centered professional development that we facilitate supports educators in their own comfort and ability to teach science indoors and out, which in turn supports them in cultivating their students’ identity as scientists.

By March 2027, California Department of Education will support STEM educators from each of California’s 58 counties, who teach grades 4-12, to cultivate classrooms of STEM belonging to meet the needs of Black, Latinx, and/or Native American students, through a Math, Science, Computer Science professional learning grant that integrates social emotional learning, culturally and linguistically relevant practice, and universal design for learning. As a result of these efforts, local implementation teams from each county will identify professional learning goals annually and facilitate professional learning triannually. Additionally, in-person statewide communities of practice in mathematics, science, and computer science will occur annually and a statewide repository of resources will be developed to be available to all educators across the state. As a result of the professional learning, communities of practice, and resources, students will experience culturally relevant instruction in STEM content areas historically underrepresented in higher education and workforce by Black, LatinX, and Native American populations. This has the potential to impact learning for 4,000,000 students in California from grades 4-12 over three years.

The Professional Development team at the California Science Center will provide inquiry-centered professional development for approximately 1,000 K-5 teachers. The crux of our professional development is science, but we address the different pillars of STEM teaching, making it accessible for all of our participants, including Black and Latinx educators. Our training remains true to the inquiry process and allows teachers to take on the roles and mindsets of learners. Participants carry out activities first, giving them the chance to investigate, ask questions and discuss, before we provide any formal information or content. The science learning experiences model engaging, relevant, and inspiring pedagogy and practices to reach all students in the classroom, particularly students of color in the Black and Latinx communities, learners of various cultural and language backgrounds, as well as learners at every level of educational needs.

By 2027, we will prepare 7,500 new elementary and secondary STEM teachers (on average 1,500 teachers annually) that are racially diverse, committed to teaching in high-needs schools, and knowledgeable of effective instructional strategies.

CSU will offer professional development and learning to in-service teachers to increase their pedagogy and content knowledge in STEM fields; increase partnerships with local districts, giving access and opportunities to in-service teachers in earning additional authorizations; ally with other institutions and establishments to ensure in-service teachers gain more understanding of the students they serve; and mentor in-service teachers to grow professionally.

Children Now will advocate for the state of California to replicate and scale statewide models of additional support for new Black teachers like the Black Teacher Project with the goal of preparing 500 Black STEM teachers and retaining 85% of Black STEM teachers by 2027. Children Now will also advocate for the state of California to institute a statewide Educator Bonus Program as a financial incentive to retain Black teachers in support of the goal of retaining 85% of Black STEM educators by 2027.

Through our California Department of Education Educator Workforce Investment Grant (EWIG) program, we will work to scale and sustain equitable computer science education through a professional learning model for teachers, school leaders, and counselors utilizing California’s statewide system of support. The goal is for hundreds of teachers state-wide to be trained in high impact CS education practices. We want to make sure that this EWIG program is as inclusive as possible. We hope to foster a sense of belonging and inclusive support that is critical to increasing teacher retention.

Over the next five years, Call Me MiSTER Program will recruit and prepare 340 Black, Latinx, and Native American STEM teachers. To do this, we will partner with each of the local school districts within the geographical location of each University in our network. Each student will be afforded a tuition assistance package to pursue the STEM pathway as an educator. This will lead to a strategic and intentional grow-your-own plan in each local setting.

The Carnegie Science Center (CSC) commits to supporting teachers to serve a diverse student population and to foster their students’ sense of belonging in STEM. To this end, we commit to being a source of inclusive and equitable science learning and resources and to partnering with teachers to co-curate culturally responsive programming and experiences that foster belonging in STEM. By the end of 2027, we will develop a co-curated, community-centered concept direction for inclusive, culturally responsive programs with targeted community stakeholders by partnering with Carnegie Mellon University, holding 3—5 listening sessions with approximately 30—75 community stakeholders, including students, educators, families, and community leaders. From these meetings, collaborators will develop a process document to be utilized by CSC for future co-curation. By the end of 2027, we will engage 4 schools or districts as co-curators. Schools or districts selected for participation in this pilot process will be based on burgeoning relationships CSC is developing with underserved districts and schools. Success of meeting these goals will be based on evaluative feedback from participating schools or districts and from the community engagement group. CSC will evaluate the process and the product through surveys, interviews, and focus groups to both teachers, administrators, and students.

Commitment Statement Coming Soon

Commitment Statement Coming Soon

By 2027, the Chicago Academy of Sciences / Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum will rebuild from the impact of COVID, doubling our reach to 500 teachers across 100 Chicago schools per year with science partnership programs that engage students in locally-focused, nature-based STEM learning. During these partnership programs, teachers will participate in supportive, multi-touchpoint experiences built around four interlocking components to build science teaching identities, spark curiosity and catalyze confidence, make (science) teaching accessible, personally relevant, rigorous, and customized for each teacher and their students. The four components are: (1) locally based science curriculum and instructional resources focused on urban and Chicago natural phenomena (many which are observable by students first hand), (2) in-classroom support through museum-educator led classroom teaching, (3) PD where teachers explore student activities, background content information, their own personal-interests/questions, collaborations with other teachers, and instructional strategies, and (4) field trips (indoor and outdoor) to connect learning to real world settings in Chicago.

By 2027, the Chicago Academy of Sciences / Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum will engage 25 Black, Latinx, and/or Native American pre-service teachers in collaborations with their mentor teachers during the student teaching period, using our school partnership programs. Though we currently work with Black, Latinx, and/or Native American STEM teachers in our programs, we do not currently collaborate with pre-service teacher programs to engage these educators with extensive STEM supports during this pivotal point in their teaching careers. Other opportunities to work with pre-service teachers in a lighter-touch partnership model has shown that they build science teaching identities that are different from the science learning experiences they went through in school when they partner with the Nature Museum through experiential learning and PD. We commit to building out a multi-touch point partnership program with pre-service teachers and university partners who support Black, Latinx, and/or Native American education students during their student teaching.

By 2027, the Chicago Academy of Sciences / Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum will rebuild from the impact of COVID , doubling our reach to 500 teachers across 100 Chicago schools per year with science partnership programs that focus on the integration of Social-Emotional Learning into academic (science) instruction and include interaction with museum staff + instructional resources with explicit examples of Black, Latinx, and/or Native Americans doing science. In addition, we will remove Western Science concepts that conflict with Indigenous perspectives (e.g. what’s ‘living’ or ‘non-living)’ and explicitly include Nature Museum staff and partners of Black, Latinx, and/or Native American backgrounds in student experiences and in curricular resources so that as students reflect on themes of who does science, they can connect parts of their own identities to examples they see.

Commitment Statement Coming Soon

City Teaching Alliance is making five commitments to support equity, representation and belonging. First, City Teaching Alliance (CTA) will create and launch a Latinx STEM strategy which will address the specific needs of Latinx STEM educators and potential STEM educators in CTA’s network of 300 schools. Second, CTA will strengthen existing STEM offerings and include a STEM focus and innovative coursework which prioritizes Anti Racist STEM education for 1000 early career teachers in the CTA network. Third, CTA will launch a Antiracism STEM Education Institute centered in Anti Racist professional learning in STEM to serve 1000 STEM teachers in Baltimore, DC, Dallas and Philadelphia. Fourth, CTA will launch a named STEM pipeline program aimed at attracting, admitting, preparing, mentoring and deploy 50 Black men into schools and communities serving Black children. Lastly, CTA will launch a named STEM pipeline program aimed at attracting, admitting, preparing, mentoring and deploy 50 Black women into schools and communities serving Black children.

Commitment Statement Coming Soon

By 2029, Code.org will support 92,500 K-12 STEM educators to cultivate STEM-inclusive classrooms with a focus on the needs of black/African American students, Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx students, and Native American/Alaska students through a variety of high-quality professional learning (PL) opportunities, including self-paced PL modules, custom PL workshops, traditional K-12 PL experiences, and scholarship opportunities for teachers from schools with high percentage of underrepresented student racial/ethnic groups in CS. As a result of this work, students will feel belonging in STEM as evidenced by over 250K AP CS and industry certification exams taken and passed, with a narrowing of assessment gaps for underrepresented groups on the AP CS exams. This will also be evidenced by the success of our NAIPI (Native American Indigenous Peoples Initiative) by a minimum of 15% increase in Native American and Indigenous students in CS. This will impact learning for approximately 8.5 million K-12 students over five years.

By 2029, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment’s Teacher Externship Program will support at least 300 K-12 educators in cultivating STEM-inclusive classrooms, with a focus on the needs of Black, Latinx, and Native American students. Through externships that provide hands-on professional learning experiences in high-growth, high-demand STEM workplace environments, teachers will gain a deeper understanding of industry practices. This knowledge will enable them to deliver more relevant content to students, better preparing them for meaningful careers in STEM-related fields. Over five years, these teacher externships will impact the learning of at least 30,000 students.

CEI will partner with CYC to recruit AmeriCorps members doing their first, second, or third year of service to join the teacher pipeline by giving them the tools and resources needed to find the best pathway for them. CEI aims to see an increase in interest of members joining the teacher pipeline throughout the school year.

Colorado Education Initiative will create a support network for teachers of color in their first, second and third years.. These support networks will include more veteran educators of color who have years or decades of experience to share, but also teachers who are still in their first five or so years who can relate to having recently gone through the first few years of being an educator. We believe that it will be important for new teachers of color to have another trusted teacher of color they can rely on to talk through any issues they might be facing.

For ten years Colorado Education Initiative has hosted Advanced Placement for All Summer Institute (APSI) serving more than 400 teachers from around the country and the globe. CEI will host APSI again in 2023. This one-of-a-kind training event provides AP teachers with the tools, strategies, and resources to ensure all students succeed — including those who aren’t top achievers, and students who are learning English or living in poverty. Institute presenters will work with teachers to develop deeper content knowledge in their AP subjects, and identify strategies to effectively reach diverse student populations – students who might not otherwise consider enrolling in AP classes.

By 2029, CO STEM will work to better connect pK-20 STEM student learning experiences to broaden access to careers and higher education. The Ecosystem helps 260 member organizations to share promising practices for closing STEM opportunity gaps so that members can connect directly to learn from each other and collaborate, supporting a more efficient use of resources and time. We commit to growing the number of member individuals and organizations by 25 each year, and that the membership will increasingly proportionally reflect the regions and communities of the state, especially in ten communities that have been historically underserved and under-resourced. We will continue to equitably expand our network with critical analyses of engagement by region, sector, and population served, sharing this data with the public. We will continue to work toward engaging policy makers, donors and funders, and industry to be in dialogue with and in support of pK-20 STEM teaching. We will continue to build and disseminate our tools for partnership building and equitable dissemination of resources and opportunities. As a result of these efforts, residents of Colorado will experience shrinking STEM opportunity gaps and students who have agency to enter the workforce.

By 2027, CRS will support 1,500 TK-8th grade educators to cultivate classrooms of belonging with a focus on the needs of Black, Latinx, and/or Native American students through three interconnected, equity-centered strategies: science professional learning collaborations that center equity and diversity; in-class science education outreach programs led by scientists of color & incorporating representation of scientists of color or culturally inclusive phenomena and stories; and Champions of Discovery student-belonging-centered science teaching challenge. The educators who participate in CRS’ programming will impact learning for 7,500 TK-8 students per year.