STEM Week is back! Join us from November 2-7, 2026. 

We will offer free virtual workshops each day during STEM Week highlighting great new education resources, experiences, opportunities and ideas that you can try in your programs, classrooms and beyond!

New this year: We are excited to announce that every STEM Week participant will also receive access to the film Counted Out.  Access will be available throughout all of STEM Week!  Check out the Counted Out trailer here.

STEM Week ends in person at the Annual Afterschool Conference on Saturday, November 7 with a STEM track of hands-on workshops, take it and run STEM activities and a STEM Exhibitor Hall.

Do you know someone working in afterschool who is a shining STEM Super Star? Nominate someone and tell us who they are. Award categories are STEM Afterschool Program of the Year and Afterschool STEM Educator of the Year!  Winners will be announced during STEM Week.  Nominations form can be found HERE until October 27, 2026!

Participants that register and attend both STEM Week and the Conference will have the opportunity to get a special STEM Exploration Workshop Certificate.

Make sure you sign up for our monthly STEM Newsletter for the latest STEM news and opportunities. Check back soon for more information, including workshops and presenters.

WORKSHOPS (subject to change)

All workshops are free to attend during STEM Week. Paid access will be available after the event. Workshops will be recorded. Please plan to attend all session if you registered. We are hoping for real time participation. If you attend a full workshop live and actively participate, you will be entered into a door prize drawing.  Prizes include STEM supplies, books and games you can use in your program!   For every workshop attended you’ll receive a new entry.

Do I get a workshop certificate? Fully attend and participate in any live workshop and we will send you a certificate of attendance for that workshop.  Attendees must request the certificate after the workshop.  Instructions will be provided during each workshop.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2026

• 11:30 AM – Youth-led Tech Problem-Solving, Technovation: Learn how to guide students through the design process to build tech solutions for real community problems. We’ll provide hands-on practice with Technovation’s free curriculum to equip educators to utilize these concrete resources and drive student innovation. Plus, hear about stipend opportunities for program implementation.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2026

• 9:00 AM – Barnyard Builders: Seasonal STEM Projects for Everyone, 3DuxDesigns: No STEM experience? No problem! In this playful session, discover how simple craft materials and everyday experiences can become engaging engineering adventures. Explore easy ways to introduce levers, ramps, pulleys, friction, and the engineering design process through activities kids can build, test, and improve. You’ll leave with ready-to-use seasonal projects, simple facilitation tips, and a flexible framework for bringing hands-on STEM to afterschool programs using materials you likely already have. 
• 11:30 AM – Building Computer Science Programming for Young Learners, Girls Who Code: Join Girls Who Code to learn about implementing computational thinking activities – online and screen-free! – that encourage positive social-emotional development and engage students – no experience required. Attendees will leave the session with best practices and guidance for building inclusive coding programs in their communities.
• 1:30 PM – Inventing is Natural: STEM Inspiration from Nature, Inventors Hall of Fame: How can educators, program leaders, and youth-serving professionals help young people discover nature as a source of innovation while building creativity, confidence, and problem-solving skills? In this interactive professional learning session, participants discover invention education through stories, reflection and simple hands-on activities inspired by the natural world. We will explore biomimicry while experiencing how nature-inspired innovation engages young people in STEM, creativity, collaboration, and invention.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2026

• CLASP STEM

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2026

• 11:30 AM – A Quality Conundrum: Who’s Delivering Our STEM Activities?, NIOST: A high-quality OST STEM staff is key to delivering high-quality STEM activities. How do we recruit, train, and retain high-quality STEM staff? With support from the Overdeck Family Foundation, the National Institute on Out-of-School Time has spent two years investigating this question and we have knowledge to share! Internal and external solutions with key recommendations.
• 1:00 PM – STEM in Afterschool: What Parents Want, What They Are Getting, and Recommendations to Address the Gaps, Afterschool Alliance: Join us to learn about and discuss the most recent America After 3PM STEM findings from our report, “Afterschool STEM Takes Off: Programs Offer More STEM Than Ever, But Too Many Young People Still Miss Out.”

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2026

• 11:30 AM – Counted Out- Meaning in Math in OST Panel, Hosted by Dr. Ken Anthony, CTNCY: Panelists Include: Dr. Heidi Cian, MMSA -Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance 

PRESENTERS

• Abbey Mae Pitcher, Program Manager, Technovation – As Program Manager, Abbey Mae supports Technovation’s global program by overseeing partnerships with schools and organizations across the U.S., Canada, and Middle East. She’s honored to collaborate with these leaders as they bring Technovation to life in local communities. Abbey Mae’s passion for educational equity was fueled by her experience as a middle school science teacher. Outside of work, Abbey Mae and her husband Zachary love to spend time with friends and family, stay active outdoors, and explore creative cooking.
• Luella Provenza, US Partnerships Specialist, Technovation – Luella brings over 17 years of nonprofit experience to her role as US Partnership Specialist with Technovation. Prior to joining the team, Luella has held roles with local and national organizations dedicated to education equity, social emotional learning, food access, and disaster response. Serving as a board member to Electric Girls, an electrical engineering program for girls in New Orleans, Luella has a vested interest in bridging the STEM opportunity gap for girls. She holds a Masters of Science in Social Development & Health from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Residing in Louisiana, Luella spends her spare time cooking, chasing adventure with her son and husband, and learning how to paint.
• Michaela Burger, Outreach Manager, Girls Who Code – Michaela works with schools, library networks, and nonprofits to bring Girls Who Code’s free resources and curriculum to students.
• Marci Klein, M.D., Co-founder, Curriculum and Product Designer, 3DuxDesign – Marci is a clinical and academic pediatrician with over 25 years of experience in child development, education, and social-emotional health. She brings her understanding of how children learn, play, connect, and build confidence to the design of engaging hands-on experiences for classrooms and out-of-school programs. As co-founder of 3DuxDesign, Dr. Klein helped develop an easy-to-use cardboard modeling system that turns simple, low-cost materials into a launchpad for creativity, collaboration, and real-world problem-solving. Her project-based activities blend playful making, storytelling, movement, and engineering to make STEM approachable for children with a wide range of interests, abilities, and learning styles. She also provides professional development for educators and has presented at national and regional conferences including ISTE and FETC.
• Andrea Dulac, Customized Program Manager, National Inventors Hall of Fame – Andrea supports educational programs and partnerships across CT and New England in her current role representing the National Inventors Hall of Fame®. Andrea holds a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Notre Dame and has past professional experience across the US and Latin America in nonprofit program management and community-based education.
• Georgia Hall, Ph.D., Director and Senior Research Scientist, National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) – Georgia Hall is director and senior research scientist at the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) at Wellesley College. Georgia specializes in research and evaluation on youth development programs, settings, and learning experiences. Her work has focused extensively on strategies to improve out-of-school time (OST) program quality along with investigations of summer learning programs and STEM initiatives for girls. Georgia serves as principal investigator on several multi-year research projects and is a frequent presenter at national conferences, seminars, and meetings.
• Leslie Brooks, Afterschool Alliance – Leslie Brooks joined the Afterschool Alliance team in August 2023. Her work is focused on supporting policy and advocacy needed to advance afterschool STEM programs. Before joining the Alliance, she was a Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development through the fellowship program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Leslie graduated from the University of Tennessee with a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine and Master of Public Health in 2012.
• Dr. Heidi Cian, Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance – Dr. Cian is the Research Team Lead at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance. In that role, she manages formal and informal mathematics education projects that support educator professional learning and deepen the understanding of how math learning happens. She chairs the Research Working Group for the Afterschool Alliance and is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s consensus study on Enhancing the Reach and Contributions of Informal STEM Learning. She is the program co-lead of the American Education Research Association’s Informal Learning Environments Research special interest group.

One of our main goals is to connect youth and families to opportunities and resources to help them thrive. STEM Week 2026 is an opportunity for folks like you, our partners, to participate in this!   If you are interested in presenting during STEM Week, click here.

SPONSORS

We are looking for STEM Week Sponsors. If you would like to sponsor this or any other event, please click here for our sponsor application.