STEM Studio ’23: Youth Mental Health

Scholarships Now Available!

Through a generous donation, we have a limited number of scholarships available for STEM Studio design workshops. Use promo code SS2023 when you register.

What if students took the lead to capture and describe the forces in and around school that impact their mental health? What if we gave them space to lead the changes they would like to see?

Our last two Collab Labs of the season focused on the factors that drive feelings of safety and affirmation for both students and teachers. The end result is a system map that shows both the factors noted by participants and how they connect. The map is a tool, but not nearly as powerful as the voices of students we heard at those sessions.  Over the course of four half-day sessions, we’ll bring educators, students, and community partners together to develop a challenge for the 2023-24 school year that has students dive into an area of concern, capture the voices of those impacted, and advocate for the changes they would like to see.

Objectives

We aim to come out of these sessions with a program to engage students, teachers, and staff in discussions of issues that drive feelings of safety and affirmation in school, and raise their voices as advocates and leaders of the changes they would like to see. The key output of this effort is a program guide for a community-engaged project that will run across 6-8 schools over the 2023-24 school year. The program guide will detail:

• Key project events (kick-off, review, showcase) that all schools will participate in
• Field experiences participating schools might leverage to inform and support the work of students and teachers engaged in the project
• Community partners available to support the work of students and teachers
• On-going support/coaching for participating teachers
• Artifacts students will produce as part of the effort
• Where and how project activities connect back to curriculum standards

Schedule

Who Should Attend

The project will target Milwaukee area middle and high school students. Sign up if you:

• value the elevation of student voice around issues of mental health and well being,
• see the learning opportunities possible through engaging students in this work,
• see where this could happen within a class you teach or with students you work with.

Participating in the vision and design for the program ensures that your goals and needs are reflected in the structure for the project and the supports available during implementation.