AAF and Gates Foundation Continue Work to Improve STEM Education

On January 5-7, 2010, the American Architectural Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation convened a national summit in Washington, DC, on how design thinking and the design process can help to foster creative new models for STEM school development. Innovations in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are revolutionizing the way we live our lives at an unparalleled pace, which has inspired the STEM education movement in America. The broad goals of the movement include preparing students to be college- and career-ready; attracting students from groups traditionally underrepresented in the STEM professions; improving the STEM workforce to meet the demands of a globally competitive, technologically driven world; and creating a new generation of STEM schools as models of excellence for all schools. STEM education is built on interdisciplinary models of teaching and learning that produce a set of critical thinking and problem solving skills applicable to practically all fields of intellectual and professional enterprise. In short, the STEM education movement seeks to prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century and to reaffirm America’s position as a STEM innovator in the global economy.

At the summit, leaders of Gates-sponsored, statewide STEM initiatives in California, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Washington collaborated with national design professionals and education and STEM industry leaders to consider how they could improve STEM education collaborations as well as the spaces where STEM education takes place. Two and a half days of inspired exploration produced an outstanding body of ideas that AAF believes will ultimately catalyze real change for schools across the nation. Earlier this spring, for example, AAF took a team of design professionals to Davie County, North Carolina, at the invitation of the NC STEM Community Collaborative, the Mebane Charitable Foundation, Inc., and civic and education leaders of Davie County to help to realize the creative vision that the summit had inspired for an 1800-student STEM high school. Construction of that school will begin later this year.

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