Connecting a Community's Learning Landscape event sparks ideas, fosters conversation
The event was part of the Omaha STEM Ecosystem's 2024 STEM Connect Series and co-sponsored by the STEM TRAIL Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Connecting the providers, parents, students, and wider community that comprise a city's out-of-school-time (OST) network can feel like a daunting task--especially when data collection and how to act on that data offer another layer of complexity. But two speakers who presented as part of the 2024 STEM Connect Series last week offered some valuable solutions.
Local professionals in the education, nonprofit, and business sectors heard from Dr. Nichole Pinkard, Alice Hamilton Professor of Learning Sciences and Northwestern University and founder of Digital Youth Network, which developed the Cities Learn technology platform. A purpose-built solution for strengthening STEM ecosystems, Cities Learn connects local OST providers, documenting young people’s journeys and empowering parents, all while generating actionable analytics to build and sustain a healthy local ecosystem.
The event was part of the Omaha STEM Ecosystem's 2024 STEM Connect Series and co-sponsored by the STEM TRAIL Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
"Dr. Pinkard shared a compelling narrative about the significance of tools like Cities Learn, which emphasize data collection to guide efforts that ensure equitable distribution of STEM resources in the community," said Julie Sigmon, director of the Omaha STEM Ecosystem. "She understood the substantial benefits of these OST activities to both students and families as well as their role in developing STEM's future workforce across the wider landscape."
Earlier in the day, Akili Lee, co-founder of Cities Learn, met with local changemakers across a variety of industries at a luncheon hosted by MCL Construction. Lee offered a hands-on demonstration of the Cities Learn platform and shared how its technology can be deployed in a range of environments.
Dr. Chris Moore, director of UNO's STEM TRAIL Center, sees Pinkard's and Lee's presentations as the first step toward a broader conversation about how these models can be used to gauge the impact of out-of-school STEM education.
"The STEM TRAIL Center is so grateful to Dr. Pinkard and Akili Lee for sharing their expertise with us," Moore said. "The model their team at Digital Youth Network have developed could easily be leveraged in the STEM ecosystem in the Omaha area--and potentially across all of Nebraska. We'd love to see such a dynamic, innovative solution implemented as widely as possible to increase awareness and access to our state's many out-of-school STEM education offerings.”