Interview with the Cambridge STEAM Initiative
4/13/2022 • 2 years ago
The information on this page may be outdated as it was published 2 years ago.
Learn about the Cambridge STEAM Initiative’s work and community impact in this Q&A with Sharlene Yang, Director of the Cambridge STEAM Initiative, and Sue Walsh, Assistant Director, Adult & Family Services, Dept. of Human Service Programs.
What is the Cambridge STEAM Initiative?
Sharlene: That’s a big question! Created in 2016, the Cambridge STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) Initiative is a joint venture between the City of Cambridge Department of Human Service Programs, Cambridge Public School Department, and the Cambridge Public Library. Using a racial justice lens to frame all of our efforts, the Cambridge STEAM Initiative works with partners to build more equitable access to high quality STEAM programming and resources, especially to Cambridge residents who are most impacted by systemic inequities. We believe that by engaging families in quality STEAM programs and by creating purposeful partnerships across our community, we can achieve this goal. Learn more about the Cambridge STEAM Initiative’s vision.
It’s pretty unique for a city to have its own initiative focused on STEAM. How did this come about?
Sue: The Initiative really started with an equity lens. Cambridge has been recognized as a hub of innovation for many years. The people who study and work at higher education institutions, labs, and businesses in Cambridge are at the center of technical innovation. Their research, experiments, inventions, and other contributions have a worldwide impact.
However, community leaders, City staff, and City Council members recognized that many families and students who live in Cambridge – particularly those who identify as Black, Brown, or people of color; people with disabilities; women; and people from low-income households – did not see themselves represented in the city’s innovation economy. We realized that we needed to create more access for all people, especially young people and students, to participate in a range of STEAM learning experiences that were fun and interactive, and grounded in quality standards.
There is a lot of national talk about adding Arts into the mix. Why is it “STEAM” and not “STEM”?
Sharlene: The Arts provide an accessible entry point to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and the creativity that traditional STEM programming can appear to lack, but that is actually essential to invention and problem-solving. We know that true innovators can evaluate the world and solve problems through the lenses of scientist, technologist, engineer, mathematician, and artist. And we would like to inspire our young people to think innovatively by using skills and knowledge from all areas of STEAM. These STEAM Habits of Mind describe the ways of being that we hope all of our young people will apply to their life and learning.
What is an example of the Initiative’s current work in the community?
Sharlene: The STEAM It Up! event is held in October during Massachusetts STEM Week. It is a K-8 Family STEAM night that grew out of a series of smaller neighborhood STEAM events. Currently, we co-host it with one of the upper school /elementary school campuses and bring in over 30 partners from industry, higher education, City and community-based out of school time programs, and Cambridge Public School’s Science, Technology, and Math departments to engage students and families in hands-on STEAM activities. The activities range from DIY Slime to Stomp Rockets to The Science of Spice to Phytoplankton Mandalas, and much more! In 2021, we held the event outdoors at the Pemberton Tennis Courts to ensure the event was COVID-safe while still connecting to Rindge Avenue Upper School and Peabody Elementary campuses. It was like a festive, neighborhood STEAM-themed block party!
Stay tuned for information about the 2022 STEAM It Up! event as well as a summer kickoff event for The Port's Bob Moses MathTrail. Details will be posted on our website: www.cambridgema.gov/STEAM.
How does the Cambridge STEAM Initiative help support residents in accessing high quality STEAM learning experiences?
Sharlene: We support out of school time (OST) programs in the city through the work of my fantastic colleague, Barb MacEachern, Cambridge STEAM Initiative’s Program Quality Manager. We support OST program providers with professional development opportunities that allow teachers to engage in hands- on exploration and discovery around how to design programming that develops strong STEAM Habits of Mind.
Barb is currently collaborating with the Cambridge Birth to 3rd Grade Partnership (B3) to create a series of workshops that will provide a variety of STEAM experiences that preschool-JK educators can put into their everyday practice. The workshop providers are local practitioners. We also evaluate our own trainings, as well as the STEAM programs that our partners facilitate, to measure their impact on student attitudes and interests towards STEM subjects, their feelings of self-efficacy in science and math, their sense of belonging in STEAM spaces, and their interest in STEM careers.
How does the STEAM Initiative work with partners to reach its goals?
Sharlene: The Initiative doesn’t run any direct service programs - we work to strengthen, support, and connect existing programs and identify any programmatic gaps. The way we impact the local STEAM ecosystem is through partnership with others. For example, in my role, I serve as the School District Liaison for the Biogen STAR Initiative, a network of community-based and higher education programs funded by $10 million from the Biogen Foundation to work with Cambridge and Somerville Public Schools. Local organizations including Breakthrough Greater Boston, Enroot, Citizen Schools, Lesley University's STEAM Learning Lab, uAspire, and the Young People’s Project, are all STAR partners. I help the group think about ways to better integrate our work through shared data and evaluation goals, program alignment, and purposeful outreach to others in the local STEAM ecosystem. We want to ensure that we are having the broadest impact with students enrolled in these programs and can measure the long-term benefits in terms of their college and career readiness, and potential entry into STEM careers.
For the past two years, the Initiative and its partners have been focusing on our students’ exposure to STEM professionals from industry or higher ed; these professionals volunteer as mentors or are connected to students through: new spaces and programming at the Main Library, during school day classes or in out of school time programs, and at the local makerspaces. We are bringing a race and equity lens to this conversation by examining with our partners how we can create a training system for these programs. This system will ensure that every adult volunteer who engages with our diverse population of young people has an opportunity to first reflect on how their own identities and biases might interfere with co-creating a space of belonging and an authentic relationship with the young people they are supporting. In addition, as the cohort of trained volunteers grows, we hope to support them to bring these learnings and practices back to their workplaces?
How did Cambridge STEAM Initiative’s partnership with the Cambridge Public Library form?
Sue: The STEAM work that the Library has undertaken is so exciting! It was clear that the vision that Library leaders outlined in 2018 to transform the physical spaces at the Main Branch (449 Broadway), and to expand STEAM offerings at all Library branches, was deeply aligned with the goals and vision of the Cambridge STEAM Initiative. To fulfill its mission of being a doorway to opportunity and learning, the Library has devoted significant space, resources and expertise to offer patrons of all ages opportunities to acquire and expand digital and STEM literary skills.
Public libraries offer free access to technology, resources, and training. The STEAM Initiative staff has been deeply involved in all aspects of the launch of The Hive makerspace, centering conversations about staffing, outreach, and programming around the Guiding Principles that drive the work: access and equity, focus on families, collaboration, teaching and learning, facilitating innovation, and data and research. The library integrating STEM and STEAM into its core programming through The Hive is a very important expansion of our community’s resources in support of STEM literacy.
The current focus seems to be with school-aged children, youth, and teens. Is there a plan to connect with younger children and their families and adults to help these groups gain access to STEAM resources?
Sharlene: We know that one of the biggest ways to impact children who are underserved is by supporting parents and caregivers, so they feel comfortable doing STEAM activities at home. We have created STEAM@Home activities, which use common materials that can be found at home. We also have been collaborating with the Public Library’s Hive makerspace to create STEAM@Home Take and Make kits. Early in the pandemic, we distributed these activity bags mostly through out of school time programs. Now that the library branches have reopened, we are thinking about ways to reach families more directly with these resources.
As I mentioned earlier, the STEAM Initiative and the Birth to 3rd Grade Partnership are collaborating to support educators from the Center for Families, as well as pre-school, and Junior Kindergarten CPS and out-of-school time educators, in creating environments that foster curiosity through play and exploration. We hope to create a series of professional development experiences that will engage preschool teachers in STEM activities they can implement with their students to build developmentally appropriate foundations in STEM practices. There is so much we can do to ensure that we are serving families at all points along their child’s and their own educational journey. We are just getting started!
Sue: We are also focusing on opening more doors to teens for STEM and STEAM internships and other work-based learning experiences. A few examples include Innovators for Purpose and the Harvard-MIT Science Research Mentoring Program (through Harvard Smithsonian Institute for Astrophysics), where youth wages are supported through the STEAM Initiative and DHSP’s Office of Workforce Development. The challenge is ensuring that a diverse range of youth have an opportunity to participate in these experiences.
In terms of STEAM and adults, our community partner, Just- A-Start, runs an excellent free Biomedical Careers Training program for residents 18 and older that is partially funded by the City, and an IT training program for adults, with academic support provided by the Community Learning Center (CLC), the City’s adult basic education provider. There are new technical training programs that have recently come to Cambridge, such as Per Scholas in Kendall Square, and our own CLC is offering free Certified Nursing Assistant training programs in partnership with Laboure College of Healthcare, for residents looking to get a foothold in a health care career.
There is definitely a need for more STEAM training, as not one size fits all. The local and regional economies are driven by STEM employers (check out the list of Cambridge’s Top 25 Employers!). Growth in these sectors is expected to continue, so it is essential for everyone who lives and works in Cambridge to understand the larger forces that are driving the labor market, as well as the technology we use every day.