Chapter 3: When the Family cries for Help: Serving Community by Creating a S.T.E.M Sanctuary

Black women like Nannie Helen Burrough, Mary McCleod Bethune, and Marva Collins used teaching as an act of resistance to inequitable education systems for Black children. The dual pandemics of the COVID-19 virus and American racial injustice drew attention to the lack of equity in STEM education that Black families receive. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how a literature circle focused on Black women’s mental health was simultaneously used as a healing space and source of empowerment for the author’s experiences teaching and organizing STEM education for Black youth and families during the pandemics. The STEM Learning Series was developed to (1) provide hands-on, inquiry-based STEM education for conceptual understanding and (2) center the Black child, their social and emotional well-being, language, histories, and genius. The chapter offers reflections on how activism served to empower families during the pandemic (and be empowered by) those whom the author served.