Re-shaping STEM education toward equitable futures for Washington students

Please join Washington State LASER and Washington STEM for an interactive panel discussion: How can we leverage the current public health crisis to re-shape STEM education toward a more equitable future for Washington students?

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our assumptions, values, and practices with regard to STEM education. STEM education leaders including teachers, community organizers, regional leaders, policymakers, employers, and—now more than ever— parents and caregivers, have been working furiously to adapt to remote learning under unprecedented conditions.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has quickly disrupted our school, social, and economic systems, we acknowledge that these systems were already—and continue to be—deeply impacted by systemic racism. We are bringing together a panel of leaders in science education, climate science and justice, health science, and agriculture and natural resources to share insights about how to leverage this complex moment to re-shape STEM education toward equity, sustainability, and prosperity for our state’s students, especially those furthest from opportunity.

During this event, panelists and participants will step out of crisis mode for a short time to consider a range of perspectives and work to determine what it will take to adapt and potentially radically disrupt the predictably inequitable futures of students furthest from opportunity in Washington State—not getting us back to the February 2020 status quo, but to a much better, just, and equitable future.

Central themes we’ll dig into:

1. How can our education systems “recover forward?”
2. What role does STEM education play in re-building a sustainable economy?
3. How is the nature of science changing, and what would it look like for student learning to reflect those changes?

In addition to hearing from a range of perspectives, we will use this opportunity to gather input on how Washington State LASER and Washington STEM can better provide the leadership and assistance that you need as an educator. We look forward to seeing you at the panel discussion.

PANELISTS:

• Derek Hoshiko - Derek Hoshiko is a community-supported organizer with For the People. He heads Rapid and Just Climate Action, a bold project organizing with communities in Washington State to stop global warming by 2030. He works to build broader more inclusive movements through anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, and intersectional organizing; and by supercharging organizing with innovative capacity building tools. In 2015, he journeyed over one thousand miles on a bicycle pilgrimage from Seattle to the tar sands to witness the suffering caused by fossil fuel extraction. Derek serves on the boards of E3 Washington and Salish Sea Cooperative Finance, and has worked for change at many organizations such as Greenpeace USA; Climate Solutions; Cascadia Climate Collaborative; YES! Magazine; Seattle Good Business Network; and Web Collective; among others.

• Arthur Mitchell - Arthur Mitchell is Executive Director for the STEM Equity Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to three goals: creating systems whereby STEM subjects are taught using culturally responsive approaches; increasing the diversity of STEM educators; and creating a more durable STEM pipeline for groups which are underrepresented in STEM career fields. He also collaborates with educational institutions through his consulting group, Catalysis Education Solutions. Catalysis partners to develop systems and leaders that are culturally proficient and equity focused. Arthur has served in K-12 education for almost 30 years, working in the most impoverished urban and the most affluent suburban districts in the Mid-Atlantic region as a teacher and administrator. Outside of direct district experiences, he has also held positions at the county and state level dealing with curriculum, instruction, professional development, innovation, industry and higher education partnerships, and charter school support.

• Bri Durham - Bri Durham was named Director of Youth Apprenticeship at the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee (AJAC) in early 2017. Since then, Bri has implemented strategies, formed partnerships and created statewide programs that are building up a diverse and highly skilled youth workforce to meet the growing demands of the advanced manufactures in Washington State. Currently, AJAC is supporting thirteen youth apprenticeship programs in partnership with local school districts and CTE teachers. AJAC also is engaged in two out-of-school youth programs in Tacoma and Federal way to get students connected to apprenticeship pathways. Bri also works with AJAC partnering employers as a training advisor working with many large manufacturers to dial in their internal training programs or map out new occupations AJAC can help support. In the past, Bri worked at Pioneer Human Services as an aerospace manufacturing teacher in partnership with the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (DCYF) skilling students up for careers in manufacturing, talking to employers about their needs and advocating second chances for individuals with criminal backgrounds. Briana has extensive experience managing and coordinating multi-million dollar projects. She has had professional involvement with, The DACUM process, The Pacific Institute, The If Project, Alaska Airlines and Vulcan Inc.

• Sean Gibbons - Sean Gibbons earned his PhD in biophysics from the University of Chicago in 2015. He completed his postdoctoral work at MIT in 2018. Sean is now an assistant professor at the Institute for Systems Biology, in Seattle. His lab studies the ecology and evolution of microbial communities. In particular, Sean is interested in how host-associated bacterial communities influence the health and wellness of the host organism. His group designs computational and wet-lab tools for studying these complex systems. Ultimately, the Gibbons Lab aims to develop strategies for engineering the ecology of the gut microbiome to improve human health.

• Tammie Schrader - Tammie Schrader currently works for Northeast Washington Educational Service District 101 and is a Regional Computer Science and Science Coordinator serving 59 school districts in Eastern Washington. Tammie was a science teacher at Cheney Middle School, in Cheney, Washington. She taught Life Science as well as Computer Programming, Gaming Programming, Robotics as well as coaching the Science Olympiad Team, Robotics Club, SeaPerch Team, and Future Business Leaders of America at her middle school. Tammie is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate and is writing her dissertation on Leadership and Game Based Education, which is scheduled to be finished in May of 2021. She is an adjunct science methods instructor at Gonzaga and Whitworth University. In 2014, Tammie was selected to speak at the first White House Game Jam on implementing gaming in classrooms. In her previous life Tammie worked for Rocketdyne, a NASA contractor, on the Space Shuttle, Peacekeeper, and various Rocket Engines.