Outreach as Research Activism: Using STEM Outreach as a bridge to Social Change

The STEM Explorers outreach project, headed by a Faculty of Education at a University in Ontario, Canada, brings free, hands-on, and in-community science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach events to children and their families from groups under-represented in STEM education and careers. The project provides pre-service teachers with experience facilitating inclusive approaches to STEM education and also creates a context to explore their conceptions of activism. The purpose of this phenomenographic research is to describe the experiences of these aspiring teachers to better understand the ways that outreach initiatives can impact their role as STEM education activists. Findings suggest that a positive STEM educator identity, a program of integrated and student-centered STEM learning, and possessing an activist sense of purpose, contribute to the degree to which pre-service teachers regard themselves as STEM education activists.