Giving Compass' Take:

• The National Science Foundation awarded a grant to Drexel University to train 24 STEM teachers in social justice to prepare them to teach in Philadelphia's urban schools. 

• How will the addition of a social justice component to STEM teaching help them to see other layers of STEM learning? 

• Read the Giving Compass guide to supporting STEM education. 

Drexel University is training 24 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics undergrads in “social justice,” thanks to a $1,009,762 grant awarded by the National Science Foundation. The project’s aim is to prepare participants to become teachers in “urban high-need school districts.”

First uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon, the continuing grant is projected to run through the spring of 2023, and states “the project intends to promote social justice teaching, which emphasizes connecting science, mathematics, and engineering instruction to students’ personal experiences and culture.”

The program aims to retain the teachers in Philadelphia’s school district and charter schools for five years, providing continued mentoring for their first three years in the classroom.

The grant summary reiterates that “the long-term and far-reaching benefits to society of this project are the potential to document and share sustainable approaches, steeped in the context of social-justice, for recruiting and preparing STEM majors to provide success in learning mathematics and science for all middle-grade students in a high-need school district.”

Read the full article about STEM teachers by Breck Dumas at The Blaze