Making Solutions in a STEM Outreach Lab (Part II)
From Megan Rokop
In my article in the February 2013 issue of STEM Pals, I discussed the challenges of funding STEM outreach programs. In this follow-up article, I strive to turn the issue on its head, and share the results of brainstorming possible solutions to these challenges. This is the second installment of a two-part STEM Pals series, with “Cutting Costs” and “Raising Money” discussed in the March 2013 issue, and “Staffing Solutions”, “Sharing Means Saving” and “Partnerships Pay Off” covered in this issue.

Staffing solutions:
Part of the challenge of running a STEM outreach program on a limited budget is finding staff that the program budget can allow. The great news is that, since a lot of outreach programming happens outside of school time, it is possible to hire consultants and interns who are skilled and talented, and looking for a weekend or summer job, such as:

• Teachers: Many teachers seek summer employment opportunities, and these teachers are wonderful and invaluable resources for helping with STEM outreach programs.
• College students: Undergrads are always looking for internships to explore their fields of interest, and working with an outreach program is a great experience for anyone seeking a career combining STEM and education. As an added bonus, many colleges offer school service grants that their students can apply to, that will fund public service work they plan to do over the summer.
• Graduate students: Most science graduate students need to TA for a certain number of semesters during graduate school. Some institutes (especially graduate schools at medical schools that do not have undergraduate students) will allow their graduate students to fulfill their TA requirements by volunteering with local outreach programs.
• High school students: High school-age interns can assist with implementing programming for younger students. In addition, their stipends may be eligible to be paid through the types of city-wide mayor’s programs discussed in the March 2013 issue.

Sharing means saving (time, and thus money):
Just like in other fields, the STEM outreach community needs to create mechanisms to share and become aware of what others are doing, so we don’t spend time and money reinventing the wheel & duplicating efforts.

• Types of information we can share include:
  • Curriculum
  • Best practices
  • Types of outreach programming for which demand is particularly high, and/or niches that need to be filled
  • Evaluation tools & mechanisms (as developing these can be exceptionally time-consuming, and also expensive if done by independent organizations)
  • Funding strategies and successful funding models
• Mechanisms for sharing this information include:
  • Conferences such as NSTA, AAAS, NABT, the annual MA state STEM Summit, and the International Scientist-Teacher Partnership Conference
  • Organizations such as the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences, the MIT Biology Education Group, and the Northeastern University Center for STEM Education
  • Journals like CBE Life Sciences Education
  • Curriculum sharing websites such as Florida’s cPALMS and MIT’s BLOSSOMS
  • Newsletters like this one
  • Blogs like the Inquiry First blog published by the MA State Science & Engineering Fair
  • Institute-wide committees like the MIT K-12 Outreach Committee
  • STEM outreach program databases like the MIT K-12 outreach database

Partnerships pay off:
Partnerships are wonderful ways for both organizations to accomplish things together that they otherwise could not. Uniting our efforts is a truly rewarding and inspiring aspect of being a part of the STEM outreach world. Possible areas for fruitful STEM outreach partnerships include:

• Class field trips: Outreach programs at a single institution (or near-by institutions) can partner with each other, so that they can provide full-day field trips for local classes, by combining partial day visits to two or more programs.
• After-school programming: School districts often provide after-school programming at K-8 schools. Outreach programs can provide curriculum and/or staff in exchange for the space to implement their STEM programming at these schools.
• Vacation week programs: An outreach program can partner with a specific school to co-sponsor a vacation week program for students at that school. In this case, the school may provide publicity of the program, space, bussing and teacher staffing, whereas the outreach program provides curriculum & programming, staffing and space.
• Outreach components of research grants: In the March 2013 issue, I discussed how an outreach program can make researchers aware of potential collaborations that can be set up before applying for research grants that have mandatory outreach components. This model would be even more effective if all of the STEM outreach programs at an institution could join together to make this option available to all of the research groups, for instance through a central point person. In this case, a researcher applying for a grant would describe her outreach needs (e.g. topic area, number of students to reach, budget), and then any interested outreach programs could respond with proposals for how they might implement the outreach component of the grant.

I hope these ideas are of help to you, as you strive to build a sustainable STEM outreach program. I most sincerely wish you the best of luck in your valiant efforts. And as always, if you would like to discuss any points from this article further, please don't hesitate to email me at <rokop@alum.mit.edu>.

Megan Rokop works at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard.

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