Context
STEAM education prepares students to address global challenges and build a better future. Nurturing critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and an innovative mindset equips learners with the mindsets and tools to address pressing issues such as poverty, climate change, health crises, and unequal access to clean water and sanitation. Through STEAM, students learn to understand these challenges and develop the skills to create and implement transformative solutions that drive meaningful, sustainable change.
This approach becomes especially powerful when students engage with real-world challenges—faced by both their communities and the wider world—such as food shortages, climate change, sustainable development, and unequal access to water and sanitation. Through purposeful, hands-on learning, students connect classroom concepts to lived experiences and begin to see their role in shaping meaningful solutions. As STEAM educators, you create the conditions for this growth—designing learning that links knowledge with purpose, and helping students build the confidence, curiosity, and sense of direction needed to lead and contribute to lasting change.
Purpose
The Global STEAM & Leadership Challenges brings educators and communities together to explore concrete strategies for using STEAM education to equip students with the mindsets, skills, and purpose needed to engage with challenges at both local and global levels. This learning experience will:
- Cultivate peer learning and collaboration, with a focus on how STEAM can nurture student leadership.
- Generate practical tools and insights that educators can leverage to design STEAM activities rooted in real-world issues.
- Highlight local knowledge and diverse perspectives to contribute to a richer, more inclusive global conversation.
- Strengthen connections among like-minded educators to spark collaboration and amplify collective impact.
As part of the experience, selected participants will work closely with students to form project teams that partner with their communities to identify pressing challenges and co-create meaningful solutions.
Audience
STEAM teachers, teacher coaches, and education professionals who train and support STEAM educators.
Selection process
- A total of ten (10) projects will be selected through a competitive process based on the following
selection criteria.
- Selection Committee members: Nancy (Teach For Kenya), Bosco (Teach For Kenya), Ebenezer(Teach For Nigeria), Kainat(Teach For Pakistan), Leonardo ( Teach for Argentina)
- To be considered, proposals must include:
- Project Overview: A clear summary outlining the project’s context, key objectives, and a proposed timeline that aligns with the overall timeline of this learning experience.
- Community Needs and Solutions: A description of the local challenges the project seeks to address, along with the proposed approach or solution.
- STEAM Learning and Leadership Outcomes: Defined outcomes related to both STEAM learning and the development of student leadership skills.
- Stakeholder Collaboration: An explanation of how the project will involve and benefit from collaboration among key stakeholders—such as students, educators, families, and community partners—to support implementation and impact.
Structure & Timeline
- < December 10 > Applications open< January 21 > Info Session
Provide an overview of the learning experience and address potential applicants' questions. -2 pm GMT
- < January 27 > Application deadline
- < February 10> Selected projects announced
- < February 25 > Online session 1: Kick-off session
Foster relationships among cohort participants, share inspiring examples from previous cohorts and support participants in refining their approach and implementation strategies.
-2 pm GMT
- <March > Project implementation
Participants implement their projects with ongoing support through virtual check-ins, peer learning opportunities, and guidance from the learning experience facilitator.
- < March 19 > Online session 2: Reflecting on the journey: Participants come together to share early insights, exchange learning, and explore challenges encountered during implementation.
-2 pm GMT
- < April 16 > Deadline to submit the project and deliverables
- < April 30 > Online session 3: Project presentations
-2 pm GMT