STEM identity can last a lifetime and help students thrive in school, in their future careers, and in life. Inclusive STEM programs expand job opportunities for the growing technology sector, support students in developing digital literacy skills, and empower young people to become creators, not just consumers, of technology.
Educators face the challenge of engaging students in STEM amid limited resources. As demand for digital skills grows, schools must develop inclusive programs to engage diverse students. STEM education is not just about science and math; Develop skills such as creativity, communication, empathy and critical thinking that complement technologies such as generative ai and coding. However, many educators struggle to find effective ways to integrate STEM into the curriculum, engage diverse learners, and connect to real-world challenges.
Fostering STEM Literacy in a Large Florida School District
Broward County Public Schools is the sixth largest school district in the United States, serving more than 250,000 students in 326 schools and educational centers in the Fort Lauderdale area. The district serves a diverse student body and, as educators in Broward, we greatly value meeting the needs of all of our students, especially in creating equitable opportunities for STEM and skill development.
In 2013, the STEM and Computer Science (STEM+CS) The team was created to implement an interdisciplinary STEM program for grades K-12 outside of the core disciplines of grade-level ELA, mathematics, science, and social studies, and separate from standard Career Technical Education (CTE) programs to reach to all students. Since then, the program has grown to reach hundreds of thousands of students over the past ten years, improving opportunities and outcomes across the district.
The following design elements drive the success of STEM programming:
- Everyone needs to have basic STEM literacy. The STEM+CS team develops each opportunity from a perspective of inclusion and accessibility for all. Equity of accessibility to opportunities is first and foremost in every initiative within STEM+CS.
- Preparing Future Global Innovators Requires a District-Wide Team of facilitators, classroom teachers and school administrators. The BrowardSTEM team leads and supports with expertise, knowledge, and agility in core content standards, STEM implementation, instructional technology, and applied interdisciplinary problem-based learning.
- Partner with exemplary resources and organizations provide engagement tools that reach all learners wherever they are with easy entry points, broad accessibility, scalability, and growth potential. For example, we used Minecraft in a classroom long before. Minecraft Education. We learned through the typical problems of incorporating new technology into education, such as the need to involve the IT team and school administration before attempting implementation. This initial pilot program provided the foundation for the district to be prepared to scale quickly as interest and need for professional learning grew with the ease of access to Minecraft Education through Microsoft.
- Research is essential to maintain and expand access to all students. STEM+CS instruction will always bring new technology to the K12 classroom. There is limited prior knowledge or best practices for including these new tools in instruction, especially with the challenges of limited classroom time, teacher experience, and meeting the needs of all students. We participate in several research and practice partnerships to learn what works and how to overcome barriers to disseminate and scale techniques and innovate where necessary. The formality of the research ranges from informal classroom needs assessment and professional learning feedback to high-level studies funded by the National Science Foundation.
- Repeat what works and learn from what doesn't. Minecraft Education had a great group of early adopters: teachers who were hoping for an easy way to bring game-based learning to the classroom with a tool their students already loved. Initial training and implementation focused on these teachers providing feedback on tool integration. They continue to serve as reference teachers as Minecraft Education expands to include tools and resources for content instruction in areas such as computing with coding, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.
STEM solves local and global problems
Learning connects past experiences with new situations, forming a network of knowledge that is strengthened through real-world problems and diverse content.
Broward County Public Schools' STEM education program focuses on STEM literacy, including technological literacy, environmental literacy, and STEMpathy, which refers to the use of STEM and computing for social good. The program aims to provide students with diverse opportunities and pathways to become future-ready graduates. This includes developing environmental awareness through connections with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goalscritical thinking skills through coding and robotics, problem-based learning with a focus on authentic citizen science, professional skills through application to current student interests such as esports and sustainability, empathy and SEL through design thinking, and perseverance and problem solving. skills in preparation for the technological future.
Each student must have the tools, voice, and choice to express and take ownership of their learning. Minecraft Education was a critical tool in achieving our goals of developing essential skills and integrating STEM into all disciplines in Broward schools. The platform helps us reach all students with STEM+CS by incorporating the principles of Universal Design for Learning. It provides students with a familiar environment within which they can create, code, and collaborate, while learning through standards-aligned lessons.
We use the computer progression offered by Minecraft Education, a CSTA-Aligned curriculum that helps educators improve their teaching of computer science to elementary, middle and high school students. The program also includes citizen/participatory science and service learning, environmental management and applications across disciplines, as well as quarterly STEM challenges linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, computing and applications such as security, robotics and gaming.
Developing Contextual Understanding: Integrating STEM with Computing Across Disciplines
The implementation of Broward County Public Schools' STEM+CS programs began with professional development aimed at equipping educators with the necessary tools and strategies. These programs include computer science courses, computational thinking integration, code/CS clubs, application challenges, spatial computing, environmental management, robotics, esports, Minecraft education, SECME/engineering, maker spaces and a PBL portal. These programs provide students with a wide range of opportunities to explore their interests and develop STEM and computer science skills.
Schools offer Computer Science 1 and 2 at the primary level with the goal of integrating computer science into core content using tools such as Scratch, Code.org, and Minecraft. There are multiple entry points at the middle and high school levels depending on the student's prior computer science experiences. Students can navigate various paths based on their interests, and guidance is provided to schools and parents to support students through rigorous programs. Many industry certification opportunities are tied to courses.
Through this program, Broward County Public Schools is preparing its students to become future-ready graduates with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in the technological future.
Research-practice partnership work in Broward schools is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers #1542842, #2031425, and #2219351. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or Recommendation expressed in this material is that of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
