UCSD’s Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment, and Teaching Excellence will open the CREATE STEM Success Initiative on July 1. The initiative aims to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, education from kindergarten to graduate levels for San Diego schools.

“We will help UCSD PIs design competitive, required ‘broader impact’ plans, plan evaluations of interventions, conduct actual evaluations through grants and recharge, and network outreach efforts to avoid reinventing the wheel,” CREATE STEM faculty wrote in a statement on their website. “In sum, we will support campus colleagues to systematically study and address K–20 STEM pipeline leaks in San Diego, and to network outreach and intervention efforts at UCSD so we help ‘plug’ those leaks collectively.”

There will be over a dozen partners in the CREATE STEM Success initiative, including the UCSD Department of Education Studies, OASIS, Calit2 Education Outreach, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence, Jacobs School of Engineering’s IDEA Student Center, Outreach by the UCSD Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition and a variety of UCSD campus colleagues and community supporters working to improve STEM education throughout the San Diego area.

UCSD established CREATE 13 years ago as an outreach support system for the K–12 in the San Diego area, primarily for underrepresented groups in colleges. The STEM Success Initiative is the newest CREATE program. 

UCSD students and staff will work together to design various STEM-related outreach and interventions targeting K–16 institutions throughout San Diego.

The CREATE STEM Success Initiative intends to target underrepresented students and high-need schools, programs, students and educators.

The initiative will not replace the already-existing STEM outreach in the San Diego region; instead, it will focus on facilitating K–12 and UCSD student interaction and participation as well as improving and creating opportunities for undergraduate and graduate STEM students.

“As we continually seek ways to have a tangible societal impact through our research, education and service activities, the campus must invest strategically in efforts designed to further that goal,” Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said.