Dramatic Results, in partnership with teams of public libraries, school districts, and teacher preparation programs in three communities —Long Beach, California, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and Prince Frederick, Maryland—propose the STEAM Ecosystem Expansion Demonstration (SEED) Project. The short-term goal of SEED is to develop communities’ capacity to create and sustain high-quality, engaging, and equitable STEAM programs for underrepresented students. The long-term goal is to build arts-integrated educational pathways for a more creative and diverse workforce.

The SEED Project will replicate many of the successful elements of Dramatic Results’ 2018-2022 AAEDD-funded Art of Building a City STEAM Ecosystem Project (ABC Project) in Long Beach, California. SEED has four guiding strategies: Partnerships among community educational institutions that share a vision of using art and creativity to engage and deepen student learning; Pillars of Professional Development that address challenges around cross-sector collaboration, working with underrepresented students, and engaging students with STEAM-integrated instructional materials; Programs that demonstrate how to engage students and educators with myriad arts-based modalities to foster self and social awareness; and Public Outreach to disseminate the educational and professional development resources created by SEED in ways that can be used to launch STEAM ecosystems in yet more communities. Through this multi-pronged strategy, SEED is estimated to reach, on average, 213 educators (classroom teachers, art educators, and pre-service teachers), 765 underrepresented students, and 132 community collaborators (administrators and staff from partnering institutions) each year for five years. Public outreach via schools, libraries, community festivals, and national dissemination will reach approximately 35,000 people per year.