IMAGINE STEM Saturdays for Educators
WYSE offers IMAGINE STEM Saturdays classes for Kindergarten – 12th-grade students and families in the Champaign-Urbana area each spring and fall semester. Lessons for these classes are created, evaluated, refined, and taught with the IMAGINE STEM curriculum team and K-12 teachers in the C-U area.
Participating teachers also receive professional development throughout the semester. All IMAGINE STEM Saturday courses include project-based activities with close attention to advanced mathematics, introducing algebra concepts as early as kindergarten with the goal of long-term participants being algebra-ready by 8th grade and calculus-ready by 12th.
2024-25 School Year Instructor Recruitment is FULL
- Kindergarten – 1st grade: Chemical Engineering
- 2nd - 3rd grade: Mechanical Engineering
- 4th - 5th grade: Structural Engineering
Fall 2024 Grades K-5 classes will be held on October 12, 19, and 26th (all Saturdays) from 9:30am - 12:30pm. These classes will continue in the spring semester as well (Feb/Mar 2025 - prior to spring break).
Partnerships for Equity, Access, and Representation in STEM Initiative Overview
IMAGINE STEM Saturdays were developed as part of the Partnerships for Equity, Access, and Representation in STEM Initiative funded by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’s Call to Action grant as a social impact initiative. PEAR-STEM was a collaboration of Champaign-Urbana community organizations Driven to Reach Excellence & Academic Achievement for Males (DREAAM) & the Urbana Neighborhood Connections Center (UNCC), and the Chicago Pre-College Science and Engineering Program (ChiS&E). University of Illinois participants included Psychology and Engineering faculty, as well as specialists in public engagement and STEM curriculum development & teaching (WYSE & MSTE). The overarching goal was to address inequities in preparation for STEM careers among K-12 students and to identify how to optimize preparation for historically excluded Black and Brown children.
Through PEAR-STEM, IMAGINE STEM Saturdays were initially implemented in the C-U community. Participating teachers received professional development to strengthen course content and delivery, and the courses were evaluated for effectiveness and continue to grow.