Description of a Twenty-Year Initiative to Bring STEM Career Exploration to Urban Minority Youth in Kansas City, Kansas: Multi-Sector Investment and Program Evolution

Abstract

Since 1999, the Kansas K-12 Initiative has generated almost $21 million from university, school district, private foundations, and federal sources to support the development of multiple STEM programs in Kansas City, Kansas. Program goals were to engage urban minority youth in STEM education, increase college readiness, and provide motivation for STEM careers. Over the 20-year period, these programs had 3,547 participants. Ninety percent of program graduates were racial and ethnic minorities. Almost all seniors (98% on average) enrolled in college, and 70% of students who declared a major, declared a STEM major. Programmatic findings demonstrate that STEM programming is widely supported, feasible, and effective on the measure of post-secondary education matriculation. This program description highlights the necessary evolution of programming over two decades with multiple funding sources, giving insight into sustained partnerships, commitment of staff, and long-term engagement of students.

A Model of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Remote Research-Based Learning

“…At the high school level, benefits from research activities include gains in disciplinary content knowledge and science practice, intellectual development, self-confidence, and communication skills (Bell et al, 2003; Sadler et al, 2010; Kitchen et al, 2018; Mastronardi et al, 2020; Puslednik & Brennan, 2020; Corson et al, 2021). These benefits may result in a deeper interest in scientific disciplines that encourages students to enroll in college, partake in graduate studies, and pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career paths (Tai et al, 2017; Kitchen et al, 2018; Mastronardi et al, 2020; Wickliffe et al, 2020; NASEM, 2021).…”

STEM Outreach to Underresourced Schools: A Model for Inclusive Student Engagement

“…STEM programs and outreach in schools have been shown to develop students' STEM interest and self-efficacy (Feldhausen et al, 2018). Implementing STEM outreach events in under-resourced schools with predominantly racialized minority populations provides opportunities for students who would not typically be exposed to scientists, STEM activities, and careers (Tischler, 2016;Wickliffe et al, 2020). These in-school STEM events have also been shown to positively impact students' science-related attitudes, content learning, understanding of the scientific community (Gall et al, 2020;Laursen et al, 2007;Vennix et al, 2018) and engagement (Fredricks et al, 2004;da Rocha Seixas et al, 2016).…”

An Examination of Black and Latinx Female Youth Experiences in STEM in an Informal Engineering Summer Camp

“…By increasing the representation of women of color in STEM, this can help support diversity and innovation within the STEM field 1 . Research shows that while Blacks represent 11% and Latinx make up 16% of the workforce in the United States, they represent 9% and 7% of the STEM field 2,3 .While some opportunities to address the lack of diversity within the engineering field have recently become available, through this work youth had the opportunity to focus on varying engineering design challenges through informal summer camp experiences. This study will examine the relationships among participation in informal learning experiences in Engineering and its influence on students' perceptions of value and competency beliefs in Engineering and STEM in Black and Latinx female students in middle and high school.…”