AccessSTEM

Hi! My name is Kayla and I am an AccessSTEM Team member. I will be graduating this spring from BC, and I plan on transferring to the UW to pursue a degree in psychology and disability studies. I first participated in AccessSTEM after I graduated from high school. I was looking for an internship so I could build a more impressive resume, and AccessSTEM helped me find one. They even paid me to do my internship, for which I was grateful. My first internship was at the Kindering Center. I have completed a few more internships since then.

This winter more than sixty-five Seattle high school students attended a transition to college event at North Seattle Community College (NSCC). During the event, students learned how to navigate disability services and received tips about how to make a successful transition from high school to college. Included were two hands-on STEM labs—nanotechnology and biochemistry. The students were excited to work in a college lab and learn from a college instructor.

AccessSTEM student participants have completed more than 200 challenging internships in recent years. Student experiences include collecting data from inside an active volcano, participating on a team that watched a space shuttle launch from a control room, working as a chemical engineer to explore photo-reproduction, exploring the mystery of an unhealthy wolf population by analyzing parasite DNA, counting salmon at Mud Mountain Dam, and creating working models of new rocket propulsion technology.

SPS is the largest K-12 school system in Washington State, and serves more than 45,000 students. Leading the efforts of AccessSTEM, I work with SPS leaders to make STEM programs more welcoming and accessible to high school students with disabilities, expand the engagement of stakeholders, implement evidence-based practices to increase the number of students with disabilities transitioning to college, and expand an online resource to share research and promising practices.

To encourage teachers to make science labs and activities accessible to all students, AccessSTEM staff created accessible science kits for AccessSTEM partner schools—BC, SCCC, UW, and Seattle Public Schools (SPS). To develop the kits, project staff researched the needs of students with various disabilities in science labs and then purchased products that ensure accommodations to these students. The kits bring awareness about the diversity of student abilities and learning styles in the classroom, promote universal design, and suggest ways to accommodate individual needs.

A recent series of AccessSTEM Capacity Building Institutes (CBIs) took place at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle Central Community College (SCCC), and Bellevue College (BC). Three practitioner-focused CBIs were tailored to faculty, staff, and service providers, while three student-focused CBIs were tailored to postsecondary students with disabilities.

Members of the STEMed Community of Practice (CoP) include STEM K-12 and postsecondary educators and administrators interested in promoting the success of students with disabilities in STEM courses and careers. Participants:

AccessSTEM and other evidence-based DO-IT interventions are being employed around the world. Japan began its collaboration with DO-IT when, in 2004, they sent their first of two professors from the University of Tokyo to the DO-IT Center in Seattle to begin adapting the program to the Japanese culture. DO-IT Japan hosted its first Summer Study program for teens with disabilities in 2004 and two DO-IT participants from Washington State traveled to Japan to assist.

The AccessSTEM project is led by the DO-IT Center at the University of Washington (UW) with the goal of increasing the successful participation of students with disabilities in learning opportunities and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Participants learn about STEM career fields, assistive technology, accommodations for employment, transition to work, and cutting-edge research. They also build networks of professional contacts through engagements with corporate partners.