Cedar Rapids Public Library part of national initiative to develop summer programming to promote STEM access

CEDAR RAPIDS — National partners are helping the Cedar Rapids Public Library develop programming that will break barriers for middle school students and expand access to opportunities in STEM fields beginning this summer.

The Cedar Rapids Public Library is one of 22 libraries selected to participate in the Urban Libraries Council's new Building Equity: Amplify Summer Learning cohort this year.

The initiative aims to support summertime learning opportunities for middle school youth who historically have been excluded from STEM opportunities. Participating libraries will work with the Urban Libraries Council and its partners to develop and implement STEM summer programming that can be shared with libraries nationwide.

Building Equity: Amplify Summer Learning is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Programming Manager Kevin Delecki said the initiative will allow the library to figure out how to best combine its reading and summer learning programs with STEM practices, and help address the learning loss students have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This programming is “marrying the best of the ways in which the library can teach and support literacy, but then we can also tie that into those 21st-century skills, those STEM skills that are going to be so important for them to know and understand going forward to be able to participate in daily life (and) the workforce,” Delecki said.

Participating libraries will work with library leaders around the country and discuss program development, how to build and strengthen partnerships and how to navigate COVID-19 protocols. Each will create programs, pilot them this summer and then work together to “build them into excellence” for summer 2023, Delecki said.

The cohort already is beginning to plan for summer programming and will spend the next five or so months developing these programs and reaching out to establish partnerships, Delecki said. This summer, the cohort will present the programs that middle schoolers can participate in.

In Cedar Rapids, Delecki said the library will partner with the Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation Department to present three weeklong middle school STEM camps. These will be held in locations that are near middle schools in some of the city’s underserved neighborhoods. Each camp will serve about 20 students to ensure each has individualized attention.

Registration will first open to students at those middle schools in late spring, Delecki said. Access will then open more broadly through the library’s online events calendar and through other community outreach efforts. The locations are still being confirmed.

The camps will be offered at no cost. They will be within walking distance of students’ homes, which Delecki said will help “level the playing field a little bit by bringing these opportunities out to where these students are.”

“There's a lot of really easy access to the STEM opportunities in areas where people have easy access to transportation, they have parents who are home during the summer, they have the finances to attend for-profit camps and activities,” Delecki said. “There's a much bigger barrier in those areas that are historically excluded looking at access to transportation, access to time, access to the resources themselves, finances for things.”

In the future, Delecki said the library would like to partner with other organizations with staffing and expertise to expand this programming, and bring the camp into facilities such as Tanager Place or Juvenile Detention and Diversion Services.

Starting in August, the cohort will look across the 22 libraries to assess the programs. The libraries will spend the next nine months improving and updating their programs to optimize them for use in libraries around the country.

“That's really the secondary end goal, is not only develop something that is really beneficial and impactful for our local community, but then also how do we design them in a way that they can be replicated at little libraries in rural Iowa, and also major metropolises in New York City and Los Angeles,” Delecki said.

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