Amazon announced a USD 2 million total donation to two Washington nonprofit organisations working to make STEM and computer science education more accessible, equitable, and meaningful for hundreds of thousands of Washington State students, especially those from underserved and underrepresented communities. The donation includes USD 1 million to Washington STEM, a statewide nonprofit organisation that advances excellence, innovation and equity in STEM for all Washington students, and USD 1 million to the Pacific Science Center (PacSci), a nonprofit focused on igniting curiosity and enabling access to science education.
Washington STEM will use the gift to support their work to ensure all students, regardless of skin color, income, or gender, have access to the education and opportunities that will help them thrive in family-wage careers in Washington State. The funds will help fill systems-level gaps—from childhood-to-career—specifically focused on students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, students living in rural areas, and girls and young women.
PacSci will use the gift to grow Science On Wheels (SOW), its flagship outreach program that builds excitement for science, technology, engineering, and math through interactive workshops, live stage shows, and portable exhibits in schools, libraries, and community centers throughout Washington State. PacSci will increase the number of students that SOW serves in low-income Title I schools. PacSci will also add a computer science curriculum to go along with the existing curriculums, which will teach core concepts and key practices in computational thinking.
