Building a Portfolio of K-12 STEM Outreach Ashley Augustine, Nancy Moyers, Ebe Randeree How can we establish STARS as the leader in STEM efforts in our community? INTRODUCTION STEM is at the forefront of major educational efforts building on national initiatives to grow American Competitiveness (although we have been talking about this since 2005) While many K-12 and higher educational institutions are engaged in this effort, there is very little coordination and strategic partnerships that build a pipeline to college STEM programs INITIATIVE FSU STEM efforts are focused on building networks across K-12 communities Our goal is to enhance the effectiveness of STEM education and support STARS efforts to bring more women and minorities into computing/IT While high schools have the technology and support, middle and especially elementary schools in our county (LEON) are not equipped to host/teach STEM projects STARS supports efforts that bring students into our STEM programs at FSU We ran tech clubs in the past year at 3 different elementary schools (meeting bi- weekly) to support teachers and students engaged in STEM efforts A wide range of technology topics were presented including web design, robotics, Photoshop, networking, hardware, game design, etc. We have established connections to ALL 16 county elementary schools STARS is seen as the “tech support” for them RESULTS We have established relationships with 3 middle schools and all 16 elementary schools in the county (and the related teachers); we have visited and have been invited to return to all the county high schools next year We have committed to run STEM clubs at 3 elementary schools and 1 high school for the next school year Teachers now call us BEFORE they start a tech project so that we can help with planning NEXT STEPS Create a database of our STEM efforts Develop and promote news coverage of our initiatives (partly to attract funding) Present our activities at Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) to get Statewide coverage Host annual STEM expo in the spring Partner with other programs in the STEM area to push a university-wide effort to grow the STEM disciplines and increase enrollment in STEM; promote this as a model for recruiting the best students in the state of Florida ADMINISTRATIVE SUCCESSES We have presented our portfolio of activities to state legislatures, school panels, and teachers We work directly with the State STEM coordinator to determine future state efforts and prepare students and teachers to meet them We are working on funding to create a STEM Leadership Corp to bring multiple majors into our efforts and attract STEM K-12 to FSU programs ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS We ran a year-long tech club at one school; we visited 2 middle schools in support of various projects Presentations included web design, desktop hardware, and basic computing We hosted “TECH SATURDAYS” with game design workshops, coding workshops, and a week-long summer camp for middle school girls MIDDLE SCHOOLS We established relationships with all local area high schools and have visited each of them twice in the last year We spoke to students about career choices, leadership, technology, women in IT, etc. We presented information about STARS to parents and offered services to the school teachers in order to support future STEM programs HIGH SCHOOLS 2011/122012/13 # events or projects # students reached # events or projects # students reached ELEMENTARY MIDDLE HIGH