Spotlight On Growth: Museum of Science

In our “Spotlight On” interview series, we sit down with nonprofit leaders from across the education sector to dive deeper into how their organizations have unlocked innovation, built evidence, and achieved growth.

Here, Emma Banay, manager of the Inspired Minds portfolio, talks with Dr. Christine Cunningham, senior vice president of STEM learning at the Museum of Science. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the Museum’s PK-12 Education team focuses on developing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curricula for Pre-K through eighth grade students, preparing and empowering educators to teach STEM, and conducting rigorous research to inform K-12 engineering education.

“Our museum’s mission is to inspire a lifelong love of science in everyone. We do this by making science accessible, engaging, and fun for people of all ages, all backgrounds, and all abilities,” said Dr. Cunningham. “Our vision is a world in which science belongs to each of us for the good of all of us.”

Since its founding in 1830, the Museum of Science has expanded how it promotes STEM learning, broadening its scope beyond the Boston community to reach children, families, and educators nationwide. Today, the organization is best known for its Engineering is Elementary^® (EiE) curricula and its new Youth Engineering Solutions (YES) curricula, while also providing families with access to a suite of resources to experiment with engineering and computer science activities at home.

In our foundation’s 2024 Grantmaking & Impact Report, we highlighted the Museum’s recent growth journey: in SY 2023-24, over one million students accessed YES and EiE’s engineering and computer science units, a 115 percent year-over-year increase. The driving factors behind this success? “One of the most significant decisions that we made early in 2024 was to make all of our curricular resources available for free download on our website,” said Dr. Cunningham.

The team also focused on building strong collaborations and partnerships with school districts and networks that support engineering education. “Here in Massachusetts, we’ve partnered with some districts like Chelsea, Boston, and Worcester. We’ve worked closely with the administrators to figure out how engineering education can be best implemented in their setting, and then we provide professional learning opportunities and materials to support that work.”

A five-year efficacy study of 14,000 students in 604 classrooms found that students using the Museum of Boston’s EiE curricula—regardless of demographic characteristics—had better outcomes in both engineering and science content learning than those in the control group. Students who participated in EiE had a 13 percent larger improvement in engineering learning and 24 percent larger improvement in science learning than students who received the control curriculum. “We’re really keen on measuring the impact of our program, in part because we’re always thinking about how we’re going to do something better or how we’re going to evolve as things evolve,” Dr. Cunningham explained.

Watch the full interview to learn more about how the Museum of Science scaled its education programming and how the team continues to inspire excitement for STEM, both in- and out-of-school.