Oregon MESA

Oregon MESA equips teachers to help underserved middle and high school students excel in STEM through hands-on invention education. MESA also provides vital community engagement and intervention activities for historically underrepresented students.

WGBH

Design Squad Global Inventing Green is a multimedia initiative developed by the WGBH Educational Foundation that features design challenges, simulation games, and videos to inspire middle school age youth to see themselves as inventors who can make a positive difference in their community. The initiative also uses videos and other support materials to help prepare afterschool leaders to work with youth to develop a sustainability mindset and the skills to design and build inventions that can solve environmental problems.

Since the launch of Design Squad Global Inventing Green in 2018, the website has had over 10 million page views. On YouTube, the Design Squad Global Inventing Green web videos have received over 4 million views and helped the channel reach almost 1 million subscribers. The Design Squad Global Inventing Green resources have been shared with more than 300,000 educators across the US through blog posts, articles, webinars and educator training events. And over 95 afterschool programs have run this multiweek initiative in 19 US states and 14 countries reaching over 2,000 youth around the world.

United States Patent and Trademark Office

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the federal agency for granting U.S. patents and registering trademarks. Its Office of Education (OE) provides educational and outreach programming for students, educators, and young inventors and innovators of all ages. Additionally, the OE supports the mission of the agency by providing relevant intellectual property, innovation and invention resources to school administrators, teachers, students and parents. The OE also has a robust outreach program that supports many community-based invention and innovation programs.

California Invention Convention

The California Invention Convention (CAIC) envisions a day when EVERY child in California has the chance to follow his/her natural curiosity, invent creative solutions to problems, and be inspired to achieve his/her highest level of personal accomplishment. Through these efforts, California’s future will be brighter and its workforce more capable and productive.

The cornerstone of the program is an annual celebration of K-12 inventors and entrepreneurs from across California that showcases their critical thinking skills through inventing, innovating, and entrepreneurial activities. Currently the program – which includes curricular resources, videos, professional development training, ideas, materials, mentors – is being taught both in classrooms and afterschool programs across the state with over 6000 students participating.

Apple Valley High School, ISD 196

Apple Valley High School, part of the Independent School District 196 in Minnesota, is a STEM school dedicated to academics, arts and athletics. The school emphasizes educational excellence and innovation with a focus on mastering basic skills as a foundation for lifelong success. With an established base of excellent educators representing multiple disciplines and a strong base of supportive local community partners including businesses and civic organizations, it is in the process of developing a K-12 Invention Pathway for all students.

Apple Valley, in partnership with the University of Iowa, local business and industry partners, and community colleges is building a national K-12 Invention Education Pathway model to provide access and opportunity to every child in school. The model will include testing and analyzing Invention Education interventions including, curriculum, instruction and assessment; teacher professional learning; community mentors; Invention Education STEM advisory board, and the District 196 Invention Education Spring Convening. District 196 seeks to serve as a nation hub of innovation to assist model development of school districts across the country.

Beyond Benign

Beyond Benign is a 501(c)3 non-profit empowering educators to transform chemistry education to ensure the chemical building blocks of products used every day are healthy and safe for humans and the environment. In collaboration with Society for Science and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE), Beyond Benign is designing a speaker series pilot, “Pathways to Sustainable Invention”, to increase communication and advocacy for Invention Education and elevate the personal stories of inventors across all ages, identities and backgrounds.

Connecticut Invention Convention

The Connecticut Invention Convention (CIC) is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1983 that has been fostering student interest in STEM for 38 years. The program consists of a strong, multi-level academic curriculum which is taught in classrooms, after school, and enrichment settings in nearly 300 public and private K-12 schools statewide. It is the longest continuously operating educational program for student inventors in the United States, and more than twice as large as the next biggest Invention Convention organization in the United States. The CIC’s mission is to provide the students of Connecticut with opportunities to inspire and develop critical-thinking and creative problem-solving skills through invention and innovation, instilling the spirit of ingenuity today and for the rest of their lives.

Kid Museum

KID Museum is an innovative, hands-on learning space unlike any other in the Washington, DC region. Founded in 2012, its mission is to empower youth of diverse backgrounds with the skills and mindset to become creative changemakers. Programs are grounded in Invention Education and maker-based learning, incorporating social-emotional learning, cultural exploration and 21st century skills. KID Museum is transforming its community’s educational system—offering robust learning experiences for K-12 students county-wide, with an emphasis on reaching underserved populations. They have served more than 300,000 visitors since inception, and are now opening a new 28,000 square foot “innovation hub” that is going to enable the museum to significantly expand its reach and impact.

As a result of a year-long project in collaboration with Nation of Makers, the InventEd Field Guide was published in June 2021. Additionally, the museum has partnered with the Smithsonian Institution, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation to test new invention education training curriculum materials for elementary and middle school teachers, with the goal of creating an offering that can be piloted and disseminated through the organizations’ respective professional development initiatives, as well as through other Invention Education program providers.

Nation of Makers

Catalyzed by a meeting organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in August 2016, Nation of Makers is a national nonprofit dedicated to helping support America’s maker organizations through advocacy, resource sharing, and the building of community within the maker movement and beyond. The maker movement has significant impacts in a wide variety of sectors, including education, economic and workforce development, manufacturing, innovation in science, engineering, and healthcare, disaster resiliency, community revitalization, and social justice, and more.

In collaboration with Kid Museum, Nation of Makers is actively building a robust foundation for invention education advocacy. The co-produced InventEd Field Guide was published in June 2021.

National Inventors Hall of Fame

National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) was founded in 1973 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with the mission of recognizing and honoring the great inventors of our time – NIHF Inductees. Over the past 48 years, the organization has expanded that mission by creating programs that have encouraged over 2.5 million children, teachers, parents, college students, and independent inventors in 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico to explore science, technology, and their own innate creativity and inventiveness. In doing this, NIHF not only honors those pioneers whose innovations have built this great nation, but also invests in the promise of future generations by giving them the tools and confidence to innovate and create.

In partnership with Old Dominion University and USPTO, NIHF has investigated how the concept of identity plays an important role for K-6 girls attending Camp Invention, an Invention Education (IE) summer program.

PBS NewsHour

For more than 40 years, millions of Americans and citizens of the world have turned to PBS NewsHour for the solid, reliable reporting that has made it one of the most trusted news programs on television- reaching a total of 29.6 million people per month across all platforms with a combined digital audience of 8.4 million people per month.

The NewsHour education department delivers invention-oriented broadcast and online content to the education community through the NewsHour Extra site – a news-informed resource site for 6-12 grade level students and teachers and a trusted source for curricula tied to in-school standards. The NewsHour education team leverages broadcast news content to create in-depth, project-based teaching modules intended to ground students in real world invention experiences.

Society for Science & the Public

Founded in 1921, Society for Science (Society) is a champion for science, dedicated to expanding scientific literacy, effective STEM education and scientific research. The Society is known for its award-winning magazine, Science News, world-class science research competitions and expansive outreach and equity STEM programs.

Society for Science continues to increase awareness and engagement with invention among middle school students across the US through two prize programs and editorial content. The Lemelson Prize for Invention, part of the Broadcom MASTERS® (Math, Applied Science, Technology, and Engineering for Rising Stars) program, is awarded annually to a young inventor creating promising product-based solutions to real-world problems. The Lemelson Early Inventor Prize, a $100 prize awarded at middle school science fairs throughout the Society’s Affiliate Fair Network of 300 fairs, provides the opportunity to reach a more geographically and demographically diverse group of middle schoolers interested in STEM. Additionally, the Society produces and publishes 18 new invention and innovation stories annually for Science News for Students, an online resource for middle school students and educators.

Two Bits Circus

Two Bit Circus Foundation (2BCF) serves children in all economic situations by creating learning experiences to inspire entrepreneurship, encourage young inventors, and instill environmental stewardship. 2BCF’s programs guide students to become problem solvers, inventors, and innovators, and to take agency over their education.

2BCF’s STEAM Lab Makerspace is in 210 schools, over half of them Title I. Programming fosters community through library-based coding workshops and STEAM Carnivals, hosted Creativity Chapters, as well as the Cardboard, Inventor’s, and Earth Day Challenges.

Jacobson Institute – University of Iowa

As part of the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center at The University of Iowa, the mission of the Jacobson Institute is to create and empower the next generation of innovators, inventors, and entrepreneurs. The Jacobson Institute accomplishes this mission via research-driven innovative curricula, teacher professional development, and engaging outreach programs for K-12 students and educators. As part of a tier 1 research institution, the institute brings expertise in curriculum, instruction, and design as well as research measuring the impact of innovation/invention/entrepreneurship-based education on student development.

The Jacobson Institute offers both curriculum and professional development for educators via its KidInnovator, STEM Innovator®, and BizInnovator Startup programs. KidInnovator offers a turn-key innovation & entrepreneurship curriculum toolkit for upper elementary and middle school educators. STEM Innovator® offers a series of online professional learning courses on STEM innovation and entrepreneurial thinking for K-14 educators. The STEM Innovator® Portfolio is a digital platform for student engagement with community partners. It captures critical STEM innovation skills and provides students and educators just in time feedback. BizInnovator Startup is an entrepreneurship curriculum and professional development program for high school educators wanting to take students on a deeper dive into the entrepreneurial startup process.

Additional projects center on building a robust assessment tool for the Invention Education community and driving awareness of Invention Education’s value through a community-education collaboration with The Henry Ford and Apple Valley High School.

Lemelson-MIT

The Lemelson-MIT Program is a national leader in advancing, supporting and implementing invention education across all grade levels from kindergarten through community college. Its signature programming, which includes InvenTeams, has helped thousands of teachers transform their approach to teaching with the adoption of invention education. Professional development workshops for educators at all grade levels give educators the tools they need to help students learn to work and think as an inventor. Additionally, through its Partners in Invention Education program, Lemelson-MIT is working with schools, districts and afterschool programs to design instructional offerings that advance the ‘new literacies’, including computer science (CS), computational thinking (CT) standards, and the Next Generation Science Standards.

Science Coach

The Science Coach mission is to enable teachers to provide coaching and inspire students to solve real-world problems by integrating the ART of imagination with the SCIENTIFIC process. Programming provides stipends, support, training and supplies to teachers of 6th-12th graders to support students interested in developing competition-level research projects. Since 2007 it has worked with 450+ students, resulting in 33 National and International awards including a 1st, 2nd and 4th in the WORLD and scholarships and cash worth over $1.4M.

In partnership with Old Dominion University, Science Coach has created a professional development for 6th-12th grade STEM teachers to recruit and retain Black students in advanced Invention/Research Education. Free use of this professional development course is available by completing the “Contact Us” form on ScienceCoach.org

STEM Learning Ecosystems

Launched in 2015, the STEM Learning Ecosystems is a Global Community of Practice with extensive sharing of resources and expertise among leaders from education, business and industry, non-profits, philanthropy and others. The cross-sector collaboration aims to deliver rigorous, effective pK-16 instruction in STEM learning.

The STEM Learning Ecosystems Global Community of Practice, representing 94 communities around the world, has been an ongoing champion of Invention Education. In 2020 they launched a podcast series called Invention Education: Portraits, Strategies and Starting Points, intended to share interesting, inspiring, actionable information about Invention Education. The series features families, students and experts in the field who highlight their own lessons learned. That same year, at the Spring Community of Practice Convening, keynote panels featured Invention Education topics and themes.