Conference: envisioning rural futures: empowering human ingenuity through stem education

Digital Promise Global received a $198,411 Project Grant award dated September 15, 2025, from the National Science Foundation's Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings under the STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) to convene a national conference addressing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in rural communities. The primary product is a year-long, three-phase hybrid convening—combining virtual and in-person meetings—that brings together STEM education researchers, rural educators, and rural workforce leaders to facilitate mutual knowledge exchange and collaborative problem-solving around critical gaps in K-12 STEM education within rural contexts. This convening addresses a documented need, as approximately 9.5 million students attend school in rural areas that typically face constraints including limited STEM program funding, teacher recruitment and retention challenges, and reduced access to STEM learning opportunities.

The deliverables from this initiative include facilitated dialogue sessions that will inform STEM education research priorities, identify common needs and regional divergences across rural areas, and explore place-based STEM education approaches connected to local workforce development. Upon completion of the conference on August 31, 2026, Digital Promise Global will produce a comprehensive summary document outlining findings regarding how STEM education research can be reimagined to better serve rural communities and support subsequent proposal development in rural STEM education contexts.

Abstract

As stem education researchers work to improve stem teaching and learning in schools and districts across the nation, rural communities are often overlooked. This is despite the fact that 9.5 million students attend school in rural contexts. There is a definite critical need for stem education research focused on rural communities. Rural schools typically have less funding for stem programs, have trouble recruiting and retaining quality stem teachers, and have less access to stem learning opportunities. Yet, rural communities possess an abundance of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and collective problem-solving skills. This project works to address this need by bringing together researchers, rural educators, and workforce leaders in rural communities to support the mutual exchange of knowledge and learning around pressing problems in rural k-12 stem education, understanding rural ingenuity within teaching stem, and stem education's connection with the local workforce. IT employs a three-phase hybrid convening approach involving both virtual and in-person meetings and activities that take place over the course of a year. This convening will present a unique opportunity to increase capacity for mutual knowledge exchange and learning in cross-sector collaboration between rural workforce leaders, rural stem educators, and researchers. The conversations will inform researchers in stem education of the needs and desires of rural communities, particularly in connection with local workforce and community development. The work will illuminate commonalities and divergences of different rural areas, anticipate new possibilities around place-based stem education activities in rural contexts, and lead to further proposal development in rural stem education. From the convening, the organizers will produce a concise summary of what, why, and how stem education research can be RE-imagined and RE-invigorated in rural communities and work to identify priority research questions for the field. The project team will also share lessons learned in using a hybrid convening approach to bring together practitioners, workforce leaders, and researchers to support meaningful and mutual exchange of knowledge, furthering the connection between research and practice. This project is CO-funded by NSF's DRK-12 and itest programs. The discovery research prek-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) by prek-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in stem education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. The innovative technology experiences for students and teachers (itest) program supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.