Building “STEMpathy”: Engineering Inclusive Classrooms Through Project-Based Learning

Often, doing is a key element of learning. Just as important, we as educators must build inclusive learning environments where all students feel a sense of belonging—a place where they are supported, seen, and cared for. At my school, Cossitt Avenue Elementary School in La Grange, Illinois, I’ve had the chance to bring together both elements through a program called STEMpathy.

Created by The Nora Project, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to build inclusive classrooms, the STEMpathy curriculum combines two powerful approaches to education: project-based learning and social and emotional learning (SEL), which helps create inclusive, welcoming, and supportive learning environments where all students flourish. Through the years, I have worked with third through sixth grade students in our own STEMpathy Club to develop an understanding of disability, dispel misconceptions about disability, and center empathy.   

All students have been invited to join our STEMpathy Club. There, I have been inspired by students’ joy, creativity, growth, and allyship as they develop social and emotional skills including empathy, self-awareness, social awareness, perspective-taking, leadership, communication, and teamwork. As an educator, working with STEMpathy Club has also deepened my understanding of the value of project-based learning. 

What is the STEMpathy Club?

Using the curriculum from the Nora Project, the STEMpathy Club helps students become changemakers in their schools and communities. The portmanteau of “STEMpathy” represents students’ mission throughout the club. Students look to engineer more physically, culturally, and socially inclusive spaces—and they do so with a lens of empathy, to best understand the needs of all in their communities. 

What did students do in STEMpathy Club?

Last year, our sixth grade STEMpathy Club students started by working to understand the various levels of accessibility within our school. Club members spent days observing highly trafficked areas, such as our lunchroom and playground, to see what accessibility looks like in these spaces. They conducted their own self-guided walking tours of our school, taking notes on areas of accessibility and inaccessibility. Students then passed along their findings to other school staff to draw attention to our school’s areas of improvement regarding accessibility. 

For the rest of the year, students developed their social awareness as they looked to operationalize their understanding of inclusion and accessibility. They wanted to work beyond their school setting, so they designed an “Accessibility Challenge” for schools around the world who participated in Global Maker Day, a day for students to create and collaborate on innovative projects. The challenge they designed asked students in other schools to examine accessibility practices for their next big all-school event, taking into consideration the ways disabled and non-disabled students may feel safe and included. 

Next, students took months to cultivate their skills at perspective-taking by educating themselves on ways anti-ableist practices can exist in schools, leading up to their hosting of a table space at an education conference in suburban Chicago. Students asked educators at the conference to interrogate their schools’ practices in an effort to engender anti-ableism. STEMpathy students also created informational handouts for conference attendees and facilitated a digital conversation between attendees about accessibility and inclusion via a Google Jamboard. The year concluded with a trip to the Illinois State Capitol Building to discuss anti-ableism practices with educators, school staff, and state representatives. 

How have students grown?

Through the STEMpathy Club at Cossitt School, the sixth graders had the opportunity to meaningfully apply their learning. They felt that, while it was important to learn and understand best practices in disability inclusion and accessibility, this could not be the totality of their experience. Instead, finding ways to engage in discourse about their learning was critical—and a great way to encourage a sense of agency.

The students gained hands-on practice with a variety of other social and emotional skills, including collaboration, communication, and collective decision-making, as they worked together and learned to be receptive to feedback in new ways. As students in the club were from different social circles, with differing academic and social strengths and areas for growth, and were just a few years into their engagement with disability allyship work, their ability to work together toward a goal on various projects cannot be understated. To reach their goals, students experienced a cycle of learning, application, feedback, and revising, which allowed them to continue their growth.

How has it made a difference as an educator?

It may sound like an exaggeration, but the impact of the STEMpathy club, SEL, and project-based learning on my teaching philosophy has been powerful beyond words. 

My teaching practices have always been student-centric and focused on student meaning-making. Still, when topics felt too abstract or complex, I was able to shift to a teacher-centric style of teaching. The STEMpathy club, however, saw me push my own comfort level and trust students to co-construct meaning on the most abstract of concepts. 

When misconceptions arose during the process, I felt comfortable guiding students back on a path where they could make meaning for themselves and their own conceptualization of the world around them. Admittedly, this was terrifying for me at first, but I quickly came to appreciate the process. 

Just as I encouraged STEMpathy Club students to take academic risks during our time together, I began to do the same. My students and my teaching practices have grown significantly as a result.

To learn more about STEMpathy as well as other programs that align project-based learning with SEL, read the CASEL report, Integrated Learning, Integrated Lives: Highlighting Opportunities for Transformative SEL Within Academic Instruction

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Alex Parker is a fourth grade teacher at Cossitt Avenue Elementary School in La Grange, Illinois, and a doctoral candidate at The Johns Hopkins University School of Education. As an educator, Alex works with students to find ways to uplift and support the voices and experiences of marginalized communities. As a researcher, he explores burnout and emotional labor challenges educators experience and examines the role gender plays in a feminized profession.

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