A Survey of STEM Outreach Programs During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The recent COVID-19 pandemic required schools around the country to shut their doors to student and teacher learning, impacting both formal and informal education. STEM outreach programs scrambled to revise their programming to reach the “new normal” needs of teachers and students. STEM Outreach directors from Vanderbilt University and West Virginia University developed and implemented a survey to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on STEM outreach programming around the country. Sixty-one programs responded to the survey, describing a total of 115 outreach projects in partnership with K-12 schools. Each Principal Investigator (PI) provided a description of their programs, and indicated the impact of the pandemic as well as the adaptability of the programs to a virtual platform. PIs also noted new programs that they had started as a result of the pandemic, challenges that they had to overcome, and innovative strategies that might enhance the use of technology in future STEM outreach partnerships. More than 80% of the PIs indicated that they had made changes to move completely to virtual approaches. Results from this survey strongly suggest that although the pandemic has been an ongoing challenge for many STEM outreach programs, many have risen to the challenge and created virtual and hybrid programs that can be a model of change for the future.