About

The Indiana STEM Ecosystem is a collaborative and diverse group of over 450 statewide members who believe in the importance of building the STEM education pipeline across sectors within the state of Indiana.  The Indiana STEM Ecosystem’s mission is to develop, support, and “stand up” regional STEM ecosystems across the state. We believe that through the “standing up” of regional STEM Ecosystems across Indiana, we will improve STEM literacy, ensure a strong workforce & global competitiveness for all Hoosiers, and  support diversity, equity & inclusion in a thriving STEM workforce.

Until the pandemic, Indiana had great momentum in STEM across the state! Individuals and organizations across our state were not only talking about STEM collaboratively, but they were acting on it. Formal and informal educators from all levels were convening, sharing best practices, and collaborating on how to improve STEM education, access, equity and quality across our state.  We were leaning into the work that had already been completed at the state level on the statewide STEM Strategic Plan that was legislatively mandated in 2017. Then, the CV-19 pandemic hit and the world changed.  Focus shifted from the great things Indiana had going in STEM to survival mode for programs. We lost our STEM-entum. At this time, the Indiana STEM Ecosystem was in the midst of the 2019 grant award from STEMx which led to the development of an Indiana specific STEM needs assessment/gap analysis tool and a digital asset mapping tool.  In order to scale this completed work for impact, we needed to pilot these digital tools and vet them in the field before offering them across the state.  Upon piloting, a large scale roll out of the needs assessment/gap analysis and digital mapping tool will be conducted with our ongoing support. Further analyzing these tools in the field will lead to improvements and the discovery of additional promising practices for the STEM space in Indiana. This tool will not only support the improvement of equitable STEM programming access and delivery across our state, but will also provide Indiana with a valuable data collection tool in which we will use to align our support. Outcomes and findings from this continued project will allow for us to support the development of new and existing Indiana Ecosystems through tangible action steps and replicable models of success. Dynamic partnerships will continue to be developed that will assist in addressing known critical issues while working toward solutions for new issues that arise.

Ongoing Projects:

• Statewide support, guidance, & resources
• Indiana STEM Needs Assessment Roll Out, PD, Data Collection and Support
• STEMmap Project (TIES project partner)