Accessible STEAM Education in a Cutting-edge Makerspace

K-12 STEAM education

Central LA South LA

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics projections for 2023–2033, employment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations will grow more than two times faster than the overall employment growth rate. At the same time, the benefits of Maker-style STEM education, particularly programs that offer holistic approaches to STEM by integrating Art (the A in STEAM), have been well documented. Students who participate in STEAM programs with makerspace facilities learn essential skills like creativity, innovation, critical thinking, and problem solving. Maker-style STEAM programs also encourage collaboration and cooperation, boosting Social Emotional Learning competencies while preparing students for careers in fast-growing fields. Despite the confluence of opportunity, importance, and efficacy, STEAM programs with access to makerspace facilities are exceedingly rare and, when available, often come at prohibitive costs for LA’s many low-income families.

Heart of LA’s Scientific Arts Program (SciArts) provides low-income elementary, middle, and high school students with free afterschool STEAM classes in a makerspace facility, supplemented by field trips to various natural spaces and cultural institutions that deepen learning and expose youth to engaging material. SciArts programming takes place across multiple service sites, with both primary sites located inside parks, thus providing students with much-needed access to green space that is utilized for outdoor activities that leverage the surrounding nature for learning. Heart of LA’s makerspace labs are located at our primary headquarters in Lafayette Park.
Heart of LA’s SciArts program emphasizes project-based learning, creative technology, and social-emotional competency to foster a supportive learning community that encourages whole-child growth. The program is grounded in Maker-style education, using DIY projects to help students learn 21st-century skills and solve their own design problems. Within a hands-on STEAM framework, students learn not just subject matter, but how to ask questions, analyze data, experiment, make connections, draw logical conclusions, and create. These skills can then be applied to students’ real-world observations, encouraging them to develop solutions to problems that affect their world. SciArts helps youth boost their noncognitive abilities, analytical thinking, resilience, and self-motivation to become change-makers in their communities.

This project will increase the number of youth in LA who have access to hands-on STEAM education. The 125+ students in the SciArts program will: gain experience with creative problem solving through new technologies applied to real-world problems; gain a deeper understanding of STEM subjects and how Art integrates into all these fields through design, aesthetics, and user interface; learn tangible skills required for STEAM jobs like graphic design, coding, programming, engineering, etc– thus increasing exposure to and readiness for careers in fast-growing industries.
Heart of LA’s vision is of a city in which the kind of free, quality programming that SciArts offers underserved youth in Westlake, South LA, and Watts is not rare, but everywhere. In this future, opportunity gaps between affluent and low-income students shrink, achievement gaps between students of color and their peers narrow, and communities throughout LA thrive as the youth of today grow into future STEAM professionals.