The BIPOC STEAM Ecosystem
Together, we are building collective power to disrupt the leaky STEAM pipeline.
Background
In the Portland Metro region, students from low-income communities, immigrant communities, and Black and Brown communities have fewer opportunities and limited access to meaningful Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) learning and career connection experiences. In most circumstances, STEAM learning for BIPOC youth is gated behind systemic geographic, economic, educational, language and cultural barriers.
Additionally, entry into STEAM majors requires academic preparedness in high school, yet by 8th grade, Oregon Black and Latino students are 25-30 points behind their white peers in both math and science standardized tests. By the time these Black and Latino students graduate from high school, STEAM higher education majors may not be a viable option for them.
One meaningful solution to this problem is to support BIPOC youth and families to build or strengthen a love of STEAM, STEAM knowledge, and an understanding of STEAM pathways from an earlier age, before they may have self selected out due to lack of opportunities. We believe that no one is better situated to provide this intervention than culturally specific organizations who share languages, cultures, and relationships with youth and their families.
In order to build this solution at scale, the Portland Metro STEM Partnership (PMSP) joined eight regional partners focused on providing services to BIPOC youth to create the BIPOC STEAM Ecosystem. Today, six of those partner organizations remain part of the Ecosystem. Together, the Ecosystem partners secure funding to plan and deliver culturally specific STEAM programs to youth, plan collaborative events, and support each other in critical work.
Who
The Ecosystem’s primary goals
To design and implement an ongoing system of support for high quality STEAM education for underrepresented BIPOC youth and girls
To expand access to culturally affirming, high dose, STEAM and career connected learning for children, youth and families across the region.
Our Partnership
Portland Metro STEM Partnership is dedicated to working as an ongoing *ally to support the BIPOC STEAM Ecosystem collective and the individual organizations. We believe that situating decision-making power and programming ownership with partners from culturally specific organizations is best for youth and families. PMSP’s role has been to convene the Ecosystem partners, to support grant writing, to support facilitation of regular meetings for Ecosystem partners to plan programs, events, and fundraising efforts, and to support the management of funds from the various grants.
As a collective, we have raised $2.1M to support expanding access to STEAM programming for BIPOC youth.
Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) generously matched $1.6M of these funds, for a total investment of $3.7M, further expanding access across our region.
