We hope you enjoy learning about our project - Project SYSTEMIC - that is working to broaden STEM learning by building a learning ecosystem in the Chicago community of Austin. We plan to spread our learning and promising practices from this project throughout Chicago and beyond!

Thank you for taking the time to watch our video! Through our project, which is in the formative stages, we are modeling how systems-thinking methodologies can be used to engage community members in understanding and systemically responding to the STEM learning challenges faced by local youth. The project builds on our expertise in community engagement and partnership development to promote STEM learning for underrepresented youth. 

The project will be of particular interest to those who are seeking to:

• Give community members an active voice in developing STEM learning opportunities.
• Build upon the existing assets and resources in a community, including local organizations, networks, and schools.
• Respond to the systemic challenges faced by youth from communities historically underrepresented in the sciences.

For more information, please visit us at www.projectexploration.org. 

We are really excited about sharing our Systemic Intervention approach to empowering the Westside Chicago Neighborhood of Austin to improve STEM education for all students. Using Systems Thinking methods such as Problem Structuring Methods, Boundary Critique, and the Viable Systems Model and engaging a broad group of community Valueholders, this project's goal is to empower Austin to systemically define their own STEM problem, create structured dialog around conflicting perspectives, and design their own community-wide systems response that can adapt and endure as the STEM ecosystem changes over time.  While the STEM problems may be different in other communities, the systems thinking methods we are using and testing in Austin should be quite transferrable to other communities dealing with improving STEM learning for those that are marginalized and underrepresented.

Reference:  Midgley, G. 2000. Systemic intervention: Springer.

One of the most interesting things about this project is how it authentically engages community members in voicing, identifying, and documenting the systemic challenges that young people have to navigate in order to pursue their natural curiosity and interests in STEM. We launched the project this year with 19 problem-structuring sessions, each with community members representing a certain perspective, such as public safety, business, educators, middle school youth, and others. The community, collectively, has a lot to say about challenges to broadening participation and systems-thinking methodology provides us a structure for supporting these conversations. Since we first documenting what already exists in the STEM learning ecosystem, according to the perspective of community stakeholders, we are also intentionally using an asset-based approach that acknowledges and validates the incredible work already happening in the neighborhood, with the goal of building upon these assets.

Very interesting approach. To make it more concrete, would it be possible to provide us with a brief description of some of the issues that were identified by particular groups as part of the process (respecting confidentiality, of course)?

This is such an exciting project! Can you talk more about how you are getting students involved?

Thank you!  There are three high schools in Chicago's Austin community along with seven elementary schools.  So in regards to the students that participated in the sessions for Project SYSTEMIC we worked with school principals and support staff directly to recruit students.

In terms of the out of school time programs Project Exploration offers, we partner with local community-based organizations that have connections with schools/communities we serve.  Staff attend various meetings at schools to recruit students, we work with teachers to help identify students that could benefit from our programs and in our high school programs we work with the largest high school after school program provider in Chicago to recruit students.

We provide single-gender programs for middle school students with a goal of developing interest, skill, and confidence while exposing students to a variety of STEM-related fields. Our high school programs tend to explore a single STEM discipline.  All programs incorporate best practices around hands-on, inquiry-based learning as well as creating personal connections.

Project SYSTEMIC is our NSF project that is looking specifically at the Austin neighborhood in Chicago and posing the question around what challenges or barriers are present that limit engagement in STEM.  We convened 19 Austin stakeholder groups of which we had two middle school groups and two high school groups.  These students were identified by their principals, counselors and in one case a community-based organization partner.

Thanks for the response to my comments earlier today. It will be fascinating to see what you learn when you merge the cross-sector maps. This is a clear and compressive way to gather important stakeholder data. 

Jameela, I want to highlight a comment you made in the video that outsider interventions are often not sustainable. This is such an important point! To me it means that when the community has ownership, the community can do more with a program (and sustain it longer, and help it evolve) than an outside organization would be able to do without community partnership. I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on this point and how you're thinking about sustainability at this stage in your project.

This is an innovative and exciting approach to broadening participation in STEM learning and community problem solving. Too often, as you note, there is a focus on "fixing" the student or "fixing" the community, rather than giving students and communities the voices they need to share their perspectives and experiences and to identify the root causes of and develop innovative solutions to the challenges they believe are most critical to address. I'm curious to learn more about how you recruited community organizations and leaders into this work. Was that a challenge? How did you build their interest and trust in your project? Do you see the relationships you've cultivated continuing beyond the life of the grant?

Thank you for sharing your work with this video. I enjoyed hearing about how the project is empowering youth and community members as well as the application of systems thinking. Can you provide more details about the project evaluation and how it is integrated into the project and systems approach? Also, I am curious to learn more about measuring outcomes at the community-level. Thanks!

Thanks for the your questions, Kelly. The evaluation is grounded in the same perspectives as the project, so we are taking a culturally-responsive and systems-informed approach.

On the process side, the key questions focus on the ways in which and extent to which the project (a) is integrated into the neighborhood and builds on existing and networks; (b) brings a broad cross-section of stakeholders to the problem-solving table and engages them in ways that center community voice; and (c) adapts to emerging factors in the project and community that support and resist systems thinking and change.

 As far as project outcomes, the key questions look at the ways in which and extent to which the project (a) builds a holistic map of the STEM learning ecosystem and builds shared understanding of that ecosystem among stakeholders and (b) identify community-driven recommendations that have the strong potential to increase STEM participation among African American youth in the neighborhood. 

Hope that answers your question!

Love your work Natasha!

Such great questions and discussions!  We can't wait to learn from and share more with the entire INCLUDES community!  We are part of a Chicago-wide and national STEM ecosystem initiative to also learn from. http://stemecosystems.org/  and http://chicagostempathways.org/   Check them out!

Thank you for sharing your reflections and learnings to date and for undertaking this incredibly valuable and powerful work!  I am so excited to see that you are bringing together three approaches--mapping of STEM ecosystems, a complexity/systems thinking perspective, and culturally relevant (perhaps even culturally sustaining?) STEM pedagogy and engagement--that I hold near and dear as well.  I will be following this project closely from here on out and would love to connect offline to learn more about this and any other similar efforts you might be planning or undertaking.  In the meantime, could you share a bit more about any thinking/planning you've done to ensure that the recommendations emerging from your conversations with project participants not only increase STEM participation (which is certainly valuable), but also sustain, legitimize, and enrich the cultures and communities to which they belong?

Thank you again!

I LOVE the community-based approach here! One question I have is: since this is primarily for African American students in Chicago, have you been working with Project Exploration's cofounder Paul Sereno, a paleontologist who specializes in African dinosaurs, to connect people who live near/work at his field sites with the students in Chicago in order to bridge those communities?

It is really remarkable how Project Exploration has been around all these years, especially in light of all the new STEM programs starting up. I appreciate that your focus has been on quality of programming and not on scaling up for simply increasing numbers. I feel that your work around listening to students, involving families, and supporting programs that are built on what the community most wants and needs. This will contribute to the field and hopefully help other ecosystems understand how to take a community-based approach to their work. Do you anticipate much in the way of challenges of funding your work as you go forward since the outcomes aren't known at the beginning? Just wondering how you get across this approach to programming to funders and how you deal with evaluation.

This is a great way to approach STEM in such a small community based program within a large city. STEM is becoming so huge, and I look forward to what STEM holds in the future. Project Exploration is a great way to reach out to those who are underrepresented and marginalized.