This project is great! Thanks for sharing.

I was wondering what sort of tools you give students to help them overcome the barriers that the gatekeepers to STEM professions may throw up at them, because they have a history of incarceration?

Bravo for developing this much-needed program. The emphasis on personal values as an effort to link potential students with successful STEM professionals seems particularly powerful.  Did you focus on other key factors before that were not as successful?

Thanks for watching our video about STEM-focused career development for incarcerated youth.  We would appreciate hearing your ideas around ways to increase awareness and interest in STEM careers among marginalized learners.  Our curriculum uses Universal Design for Learning and the co-design process; we'd love to hear your thoughts about how we integrated these approaches in working with this unique population of students. 

Great project and idea! How did you choose the particular sites for participant recruitment? 

Amazing project, and I really like the spotlight on values as a lever for connecting the students to the representatives of STEM jobs. I understand that the curriculum focus is on developing interest, motivation and building STEM-positive identity in the students, but I am wondering if once the interest is developed, does it lead to an increase in motivation in the students to engage in STEM-specific coursework that could lead to these jobs? 

One of my favorite things about the STEM For All Showcase is seeing how researchers are addressing complex, systematic issues. You're right. This is a marginalized population that perhaps needs the greatest intervention and highest quality resources yet often receives the least and lowest. Your work seems like a great first step in giving these youth access to STEM careers. How will you build on this project or connect them to follow-up opportunities to capitalize on the interest you may generate?

Thank you for presenting your video on such important work. I am wondering if your curriculum addresses any other constructs - in addition to shared values with STEM professionals - that contribute to a sense of agency in STEM fields and a STEM identity Do students have opportunities to work collaboratively to explain natural phenomena or solve problems where they can get a sense of competence in STEM understandings and performances? How are their accomplishments acknowledged or recognized so that they can internalize a sense of accomplishment? 

Amazing program.  Gives me hope for the future.  Great presentation.  very concise and  informative. 

This is such important work!  I especially appreciate your co-design process and the focus on values as a way of connecting youth who are incarcerated to possible futures in STEM.  I look forward to learning more about your work.  Will you be measuring outcomes, and do you have any publications about this work?

I loved learning more about your project through this video.  What important and meaningful work!  I'm proud to have you all as UMass colleagues and can't wait to talk more about your work :) 

This is absolutely inspiring, transformative work. Thank you for your effort in this space!

Karen

I was excited to learn about your project! As you might know Chicago Public Schools has made a year of CS a graduation requirement for all HS students starting with the class of 2020. This is the result of several years of work with CAFECS (the Chicago Alliance for Equity in Computer Science) With 97 high schools in the district we have a couple of them that serve primarily incarcerated youth. I'd like to connect with you and see what we can learn from you and adapt to our schools.

Great work

Lucia, I really enjoyed your CafeCS video and would love to talk about ways our projects with incarcerated youth overlap.  Please email when you get a chance at karenh@umass.edu

Fascinating initiative and great coverage in Forbes.com.  What have been some of the unique challenges of gaining access and working with incarcerated youth? 

 I just wanted to echo that this work is important and inspiring. Any chance that some of these educational resources are publicly available? In particular, the STEM-occupation videos could be useful in a variety of settings. I hope this research continues to be fruitful!

Thank you for the fascinating view of Universal Design in Learning in action. The videos of the STEM professionals linked by values were powerful. Day of Cyber does something similar when they link professions by learning style (https://www.nsadayofcyber.com/). Your efforts with the youth remind me of Code.7370. (https://thelastmile.org/). I applaud you for your important work and look forward to reading about your future progress.