The National STEM Centre
The National STEM Centre will open during 2009/2010 on the University of York campus, co-located with the National Science Learning Centre.
The key objectives of the National STEM Centre are to:
• House the UK’s largest collection of STEM teaching and learning resources.
• Provide teachers of STEM in with the ability to access a wide range of support materials.
• Bring together STEM partners with a shared mission to support STEM education, thus supporting the government’s STEM Cohesion Programme.
Teachers will be able to access the STEM resource collection in York from Summer 2009, and in addition to the physical collection, as much material as possible will be made available online through the Centre’s website during 2010.
Alongside contemporary resource materials (including print, multimedia, and practical resources) the Centre will hold an archive collection, showcasing curriculum development over several decades, and a research collection to provide teachers and lecturers with research publications that may be of particular interest to classroom practitioners. The development of the Centre’s resource collections, in particular the archive and research material, is being done in collaboration with partner STEM organisations, who are providing expertise in particular subject areas.
The Centre’s accommodation includes the resource collections area, which is freely accessible for visitors, and a hot-desk space for colleagues from STEM partner organisations – our STEM Associates. We would encourage STEM partners to utilise these facilities, for example, as a base for staff working in the North of England (both occasionally and for longer periods of time), for colleagues who wish to access the resource collections to support curriculum project development, and also to encourage collaborative partnerships. We will be delighted to facilitate such innovations by making arrangements for STEM meetings at the Centre.
Please visit www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk for further information, and to register for our Newsletter.