OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
STEMteachersNYC Receives $300,000 in Early Childhood STEM Learning Challenge
STEMteachersNYC among 10 Grant Recipients Sharing $2.4 Million in Funding to Spur Active Learning in Pre-K to Third Grade Education
New York, NY – Today STEMteachersNYC announced that it has been chosen as a recipient of a $300,000 Early Childhood STEM Learning Grant from , the national network devoted to training and retaining 100,000 excellent K-12 STEM teachers by 2021. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and STEMteachersNYC is New York City’s premier provider of professional development in the physical sciences. The Early Childhood STEM Learning Challenge encouraged all 280+ members of the 100Kin10 network to devise “moonshot” ideas that answer a crucial question: How should we support teachers to create environments for young students across the country?
The grant to STEMteachersNYC will fund Kid Talk, Teacher Talk (KT³), a two-year project designed to enhance New York Metro Area primary teachers’ self-confidence and expertise in teaching science and provide on-going support for classroom implementation. KT³’s premise is simple: kids who talk more, learn more. A key element of KT3 is to build on primary teachers’ existing expertise in teaching reading and writing. Teachers from Montgomery Township School District (NJ), who have used this approach successfully in their classrooms for several years, will lead the two-week workshop each summer. Science content specialists will be available to build teacher self-confidence and provide on-line support during the school year.
Fernand Brunschwig, STEMteachersNYC’s President and the KT³ Project Director said, “We are grateful to 100Kin10 for giving us this opportunity to inspire 52 New York Metro Area elementary school teachers during these two years to make hands-on science as much a part of their classrooms as reading and writing.”
“As New York prepares to implement the Next Generation Science Standards, I look forward to capitalizing on the expertise of participating primary grade teachers and to helping them feel more confident about teaching science,” said Jason Sullivan, KT3 Program Director and Montgomery High School Science Supervisor.
“To better prepare all students to solve the world’s most pressing problems, we need to help teachers deliver STEM content in active ways that support their students’ creative use of this knowledge. Increasing active learning – which engages students in thinking, questioning, and problem solving grounded in real-world problems – for our youngest learners is a key part of improving STEM education and building a robust and diverse pipeline of STEM talent for the future,” said 100Kin10 Executive Director . “By inviting our network members to tackle the challenge of expanding early childhood active STEM learning through user-centered design and experimentation, we’ve seen tremendous solutions emerge. It will be exciting to watch the range of solutions evolve and unfold.”