"I Feel, I Should Be Here": Community-Based Informal STEM Learning Environments as Black Educational Spaces

• In Event: Race, Policy, Equity: Retooling Out-of-School Time Programs, Partnerships, and Evaluation for 21st Century Learning

Abstract

Informal STEM learning environments have been found to be sites where historically marginalized youth can engage in STEM in meaningful ways. STEM has traditionally been taught from white, westernized perspectives that root STEM in anti-Blackness. This study looks at how a community-based informal STEM program serves a Black educational space and the pedagogical moves that led to such. Using participatory design research, I explore the co-constructed culture of a Teen STEM program at a local Boys and Girls Club. I present characteristics that emerged as key to developing an informal STEM-based, Black educational space and how the role of the informal STEM educator is critical in supporting Black youth in reimagining the possibilities of STEM and how it is taught.

Author

• Ti'Era Worsley, University of North Carolina - Greensboro
  Presenting Author