Our Purpose

Launched in 2010, the National Urban League’s Project Ready: STEAM enhancement provides middle and high school students with the academic and experiential support necessary to increase their understanding of, interest in, and the opportunities afforded through science, technology, engineering, arts/agriculture, and math. This vital enhancement offers informal and formal STEAM academic supports, project-based learning, mentoring, and engagement with role models in STEAM-related careers and academia.

Exposure to STEAM college majors and careers is especially important to communities of color as children of color are particularly found to be underrepresented in these areas. As such, Project Ready: STEAM is intentionally structured to administer a wide range of opportunities and supports to historically underrepresented students in order to help broaden their participation in the STEAM fields.

Our Approach

Twenty-one Urban League affiliates across the U.S. regularly collaborate with local STEAM partners and utilize the Project Ready 2.0 and Project Ready: STEAM curricula, as well as other related tools, to improve access to high-quality STEAM instruction, material, and activities in their communities during out-of-school time.

Where significant strides have been made over the last decade in the attention to and investment in STEAM in our urban communities, only modest gains have been realized to date with the number of historically underrepresented students joining and persisting in the STEAM workforce.

To address this lack of diversity in the STEAM training pipeline, the following overall practices are paramount to success:

1. Develop challenging STEAM activities and projects that are uniquely relevant to historically underrepresented students of color and women

2. Motivate and guide students to acquire the skills, knowledge, attitudes, competencies, and aptitudes to move forward in STEAM

3. Educate students earlier about the potential college and career options that are available to them

4. Encourage students to make informed choices based on the knowledge of what they will need to be successful in a range of STEAM environments.

5. Prepare students for high school graduation and STEAM careers, certificates, and degrees

6. Provide students with access to invested and educated