Free course alert!
As mentioned in our 2022 Annual Report, Stemettes were a practice partner on the Institute of Education’s Youth Equity + STEM project from 2017 until 2022. On 23 May, an open, free Equity Compass course was launched by the project team on Future Learn.
The four-year project was an insightful and fantastic opportunity for us to reflect on the way we build and implement interventions for young women and non-binary people. At the same time, we were adding to the body of knowledge on how Informal Science Learning organisations can embed equitable practice.
Equality means giving individuals and groups the same resources and opportunities. Equity (and Social Justice) goes further and advocates differential treatment according to need while also recognising and valuing differences between people – as well as seeking to change structures and practices that create and maintain inequalities. This is a crucial but too often forgotten element of the work needed to diversify and improve the #STEM workforce.
Alongside other partners like Hanwell Zoo, Knowle West Media Centre, and We Are the Curious, our contributions and inputs were formalised into papers, but also the detailed and highly practical Equity Compass. Up until now, all of the resources have been made available via the main yestem.org website, but in the release of this new self-paced 3-week course, all manner of practitioners can benefit from the resource. It’s also fully sponsored, so anyone who completes it gets a certificate of completion at the end and unlimited access.
The Equity Compass itself is broken down across 4 areas of impact:
- Challenging the Status Quo
- Working with and Valuing minoritised Communities
- Embedding Equity
- Extending Equity
Head over to https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/equity-informal-stem-learning-using-the-equity-compass/1 to get started – and do share this link with others in the informal STEM learning sector.
