STEM Summer

What is STEM Summer

Before working with schools during the school year, i2 started as a summer program in 3 Northeast locations to engage middle school students in STEM. We worked with a number of leading STEM organizations to develop a program that would “invent and inspire” and to make up for the well-documented “summer learning loss” which occurs over the summer months. Based on the success of the first summer, i2 expanded to 23 locations across a wide variety of schools, settings, and populations of students the next year. Today we offer flexible programs to match the needs of schools and other community organizations to offer engaging and educational content for middle school student and teachers over the summer and school vacation months.

Program

Schedule

STEM Summer can be run during any week or series of weeks over the summer months. Each course runs all day for one full week and can accommodate up to 25 students with one lead teacher, one assistant teacher and one “near peer” working with the students. Multiple different courses can be run over the same week or the same course can be run over multiple weeks.

Locations

STEM Summer is currently run in a wide range of independent, public, charter and parochial schools around the world. It has also been run in community centers and churches depending on the resources available at those locations. Some courses can be run in any room large enough to hold 25 children, others require technology or access to running water or refrigeration.

Teachers

STEM Summer courses can be taught by a lead teacher with an assistant teacher or co-taught by two lead teachers. We also recommend that each classroom has a “near peer” usually a high school student who can assist with the younger students and have a valuable learning experience themselves. i2 provides all training for lead teachers at the national i2 training conference held each spring and provides additional support for teachers on an online portal, i2 Online.

Financials

STEM Summer can be run as a sponsored free summer program for middle school students or as a tuition-based program for schools looking to generate additional revenue from their facilities and create employment opportunities for their teachers in the summer months. i2 can provide all services including staffing, registration, and marketing or can simply provide the curriculum, materials and teacher training.