Saint Louis Science Center Receives Boeing
Grant to Support the YES STEMtastic Camp
The Saint Louis Science Center is thrilled to announce a generous $100,000 grant award from The Boeing Company to help fund our nationally recognized Youth Exploring Science (YES) Program and YES’s new STEMtastic Camp program this summer.
Boeing’s support will help sustain the Science Center’s impactful STEM educational programs, which bring engaging, project-based science and technology learning opportunities to youth with limited access to high-quality, outside-of-school learning experiences. The YES Program helps prepare underserved high school students for graduation, college and future careers through informal, hands-on STEM programs and experiences.
Funding will support the YES Program’s Aerospace and Engineering components—fields particularly important to the St. Louis community’s need for a well-educated and STEM-skilled workforce. These popular and impactful components—two of six components in the YES Program—bring a greater awareness of the rich and extensive history of aviation in St. Louis and the well-documented need for delivering technology-savvy college graduates and technicians to fill the workforce pipeline. The Boeing Global Engagement Grant will also support the YES Program’s STEMtastic Camp, a program that will provide free STEM learning experiences for hundreds of underserved elementary school students attending summer school in the University City and Riverview Gardens school districts. Both districts are located in underserved communities, and both are Title 1 schools, making the STEMtastic Camp an important tool in encouraging diversity in STEM occupations and supporting STEM learning for young people from demographics that are historically underrepresented in science and technology fields.
This program builds upon a successful pilot of the program—also made possible by Boeing—in the University City school district during the summer of 2021, which reached approximately 240 community members.
In the program, YES Teens—50% of whom are female and the majority from underserved communities themselves—plan the curriculum and hands-on STEM activities, as well as lead the programming that demonstrates for these young learners just how much of their lives, interests and experiences connect with STEM. Students will utilize dynamic flight, space, computer and technology programming to participate in projects about space and flight, followed by later activities delving into coding, how computers are assembled and more.
The Science Center wishes to thank The Boeing Company once again for their generous support for the YES Program and for their help in making our mission possible.
The YES Teens Prepare for
the STEMtastic Camp
Recently the teens in the YES Program’s Aerospace and Engineering components had the unique opportunity to receive training in inquiry-based teaching, classroom management and microaggressions towards people of color in STEAM as part of three professional development sessions in preparation for this summer’s new STEMtastic Camp.
In the first and second sessions, Heather Milo from Washington University’s Institute for School Partnership visited the Taylor Community Science Resource Center to lead the YES Teens in professional development sessions devoted to classroom management and inquiry-based teaching. Inquiry is a teaching method in which instructors use questions, problems and scenarios to help students actively engage with content through exploration and problem-solving. Students find their own solutions to real-world problems. As part of the session the teens created a plan for the first day with the kids to establish norms and get to know them.
For the third session the teens were joined by St. Louis’ Education Equity Center for a three-hour training session on microaggressions. Sherita Love led the teens in discussions about the importance of recognizing microaggressions—the verbal or nonverbal insults, snubs or slights driven by hostile or negative attitudes toward culturally marginalized groups including people of color and women in STEAM fields—and finding ways of dealing with them. The teens also participated in example scenarios they might encounter, an unfortunate reality that Kerry Stevison, manager of STEAM content for the Community Science department and manager of the YES Program’s Aerospace component, notes the teens are likely to face in their lives, both inside and out of the classroom.
But even after this summer’s STEMtastic Camp, the tools and skills the YES Teens have learned during these sessions are ones they’ll carry with them throughout the rest of their time in YES and beyond. “Classroom management skills are a key takeaway for these sessions,” Stevison says, “but so is leading inquiry-based learning.” Alongside the professional development sessions, the teens have been learning the inquiry curriculum—focused on designing gliders—they’ll use for the STEMtastic Camp. “Inquiry is an excellent teaching strategy, especially for STEM topics, but it also teaches the teens to be persistent and to think both critically and creatively.”
SUPPORT
MAKES OUR
MISSION
POSSIBLE
Thank you to all of our donors and sponsors for your support and making our mission to ignite and sustain lifelong science and technology learning possible. We’d like to mention just a few of the recent grants and sponsorships that are making an impact on STEAM education through the mission of the Science Center.
25,000
FROM: Dana Brown Charitable Trust
RECEIVED: February 26, 2022
5,000
FROM: Laura J. Niles Foundation
RECEIVED: March 15, 2022
25,000
FROM: Bayer
RECEIVED: March 22, 2022
2,000
FROM: Burns & McDonnell Foundation
RECEIVED: March 10, 2022
2,500
FROM: SSM Health Physical Therapy
RECEIVED: January 25, 2022
15,000
FROM: Missouri & Illinois Farm Bureau Gateway Committee
RECEIVED: April 5, 2022
SSM Health Physical Therapy
Sponsors the Science Center’s
Esports Program
The Science Center is proud to have SSM Health Physical Therapy as a sponsor of the Science Center’s Esports program. This sponsorship will highlight SSM Health Physical Therapy’s Esports health and wellness initiatives. Thirty-second videos exploring how SSM Health’s physical therapies can benefit
the health of gamers and esports enthusiasts will play at most esports events, including our new educational Esports XP sessions. SSM Health Physical therapists will have the opportunity to educate participants onsite at select XP sessions.
These free Esports XP sessions allow the next generation of gamers, and their guardians, to learn how gaming can boost creative thinking, teamwork, information gathering and technology fluency skills. Topics covered in these sessions include PC Building, Streaming Basics, Casting Basics and Game Design. The sessions are instructional with time built in for participants to explore games and play.
The Esports Program is excited to offer this unique opportunity and benefit to its participants and looks forward to a continued partnership with SSM Health Physical Therapy.
SPECIAL OFFER
WE’RE HIRING
The Saint Louis Science Center is currently hiring for several full and part time positions!
The Saint Louis Science Center is a team of educators, entertainers and science enthusiasts who work together to fulfill our mission to ignite and sustain lifelong science and technology learning.
