Our student-centered, choice-based model revolves around our suite of 32 STEAM Challenges. Facilitators select a set of Challenges for their studio to work on, and the students browse, choose, and explore the first level of any Challenge they are interested in. Let's walk through a FUSE session with two students, Sophie, and Jayden.

Choose a Challenge

Sophie and Jayden watch the introductory trailer video for the different challenges currently available to them. After watching the trailers, they choose to work on Solar Roller, the solar-powered car challenge.

In 2016 we surveyed 700 students participating in FUSE as part of a program evaluation by the University of Colorado. The findings confirm student-led choice allows interest development to flourish.

Collaborating with others leads to new interests

66% of surveyed participants described peer support as important to the development of new interests.

Choice leads to interest development

75% of students in FUSE report that they discovered a new interest that could be relevant to their future lives.

All youth find something that interests them in FUSE.

100% of surveyed youth report discovery of a new interest in FUSE. Three quarters reported that this new interest could be relevant to success in school, at work, or both.

FUSE Evaluation & Research Summary

FUSE’s innovative model is based on decades of research in education. The program was initially conceived to create an alternative infrastructure for learning. To create a sustainable and equitable infrastructure for learning, we need to continually assess the program and refine its design. As FUSE grows and spreads into different contexts, FUSE team researchers observe and document student experience in a representative subset of FUSE studios. Our researchers collect video and interview data using ethnographic data collection models. FUSE has also been externally reviewed, which involved a detailed survey of 700 FUSE users. The survey results are summarized here.

It’s no secret that STEM fields aren’t exactly known for their inclusivity. Many STEM workplaces (and STEM learning environments) are dominated by white males and white male culture. As a result, many female students and students of color lose interest in STEM (or never become interested in it in the first place).

So how do we create STEM learning environments that are inclusive of the interests and ideas of girls and students of color? Many educators and education researchers have tackled this problem in different ways, but a recent study conducted by researchers in Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy sheds new light on this question.

Not many folks know that Renés Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, was pen pals with a princess, Elisabeth of Bohemia. Fewer people know that in those letters she would take him to task for arguments in his philosophy that didn’t work, making him fix them and explain himself.

Am I trying to say that someone should write a saucy historical romance about these two? No (Maybe). I am trying to say that today’s students are not the first people to ever have to collaborate on big ideas from afar. We know it can be done.

If you’re a STEM educator reading this, welcome and thank you! From working with STEM teachers all over the world, we’ve had the chance to hear the challenges science teachers face as they try to make a classroom out of a Zoom room. And there are plenty of challenges. One of the biggest? Many students are disinterested. No surprise there. Remote learning is hard. Burn out comes quick, and it’s harder for you to be there to intervene.