Gearing Up for #STEMNOW 2016

In 2015, 65 teachers and nearly 150 students came to the NYU Tandon School of Engineering to work and learn during a series of engaging, in-depth Science, Technology, Engineering and Math summer programs known collectively as #STEMNOW. In summer 2016, the school’s Center for K12 STEM Education is striving to do much, much more to advance New York City’s young people and promote diversity in STEM studies and careers by hosting nearly 600 students and teachers on our Downtown Brooklyn campus. 

Even if you aren’t a New York City student or teacher, you can get involved in the Center’s invaluable work. 

Nearly 100 NYU Tandon School of Engineering faculty members and graduate and undergraduate students are getting ready to provide exciting and ongoing STEM education to participants in signature programs like Science of Smart Cities, Research Experiences for Teachers, ARISE and GenCyber. They are determined to make the summer 2016 on-campus STEM education program bigger and better than ever, but they need you to help make it happen.

Your contribution will help the Center democratize access to the kind of high-quality STEM instruction that all K-12 students and teachers need to succeed in an increasingly technical and global economy.

Discussing the concept of smart, interconnected cities and how it’s common today to talk about “disruptive technologies,” NYC Mayoral Counsel Maya Wiley recently declared that truly smart cities are those in which inequality is disrupted. With 90 percent of students attending our STEM programs coming from communities historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines and more than 80 percent from low-income families, the Center is helping make New York one of those smart cities, and your sponsorship will play a large part.

The benefits are borne out by hard data: In a recent three-year study that tracked some 3,000 young participants, 70% of them did better in school by at least a half a letter grade (or more) in not only math and science but other subjects as well.  In the first half of this academic year, the Center’s engineering student-instructors provided over 6,500 hours of STEM instruction to 800 middle and high schoolers through programs and workshops. In two New York City high schools, the Science of Smart Cities curriculum is being offered for elective credit.

The staff at the Center for K12 STEM Education have further proof—in writing.

Manuel Gomez, then a junior at Public School MS/HS 141, the Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy in the Bronx, had just missed being accepted into the Applied Research Innovations in Science and Engineering (ARISE) program at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Designed for tenth- and eleventh-grade students with little or no access to high-quality STEM education experiences, students of color, and those from low-income backgrounds, the program would have meant seven weeks of challenging college-level workshops and original research in a well-equipped university lab. Despite being deeply disappointed, he wrote a letter thanking program leaders simply for the opportunity to apply—and the chance to dream.

Manuel Gomez

When a few slots opened up, Manuel was at the top of the waitlist, and he spent an exciting summer studying in Tandon’s cutting-edge internet security lab. He directly credits his current situation to that turn of affairs: he was offered a full four-year scholarship at the University of Wisconsin at Madison to study computer science. The staff at Tandon’s Center for K12 STEM Education recently received another note from Manuel, this one asserting, “If it weren’t for ARISE, I would never have been accepted to the university or earned my scholarship. Thank you for all you have done.”

Manuel has been far from the only recent ARISE alum inspired to pursue a college degree, and many are determined to remain right at NYU. This year almost a dozen applied to the School of Engineering and other NYU schools.

It’s within your power to help more kids like Manuel achieve their dreams.

ARISE—which is expected to receive more than 200 applications in 2016—is just one of the many signature summer programs mounted by the Center. Find out more about the Center's programs for K-12 students. You’ll learn about GenCyber, which introduces high-school-age women to programming, virtuous hacking, and digital forensics. It also encourages them to pursue educational opportunities in computer science and cybersecurity—fields that are growing at more than ten times the overall job market but are notoriously deprived of female professionals. And you’ll discover why a reporter for Fast Co. wrote after visiting the Science of Smart Cities program, “If this is what 7th graders can dream up, it's hard to figure out why old people are still in charge.”

New York City’s teachers are also benefitting from the Center’s programming and its commitment to the White House to train 500 public school teachers over a decade—a course of action that will have a positive and exponential impact on more 50,000 public school children. Learn more about how our teachers are teaching New York City’s teachers.

All of these immersive programs are free to the NYC middle and high school students and teachers who take part, and applications are open or will be available soon. Please help support our work and share it with friends, family, and co-workers on social media.  For program announcements, sign up for our email list, read our blog, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo.