The SLATE program (STEM-Language Arts Teaching/learning Ecosystems), funded by a $3.5 million award from the U.S. Department of Education, is a multi-tiered program that will support New Hampshire middle and high school students learning STEM-related topics. The program supplies enrichment training to teachers and establishes a peer mentoring program for students, focusing largely on English learners, students often underrepresented in the STEM field.
Multilingual students continue to be inadequately represented in STEM in college and in the workforce. The goal of SLATE is to find ways to provide students the assistance they need for communicating and understanding the scientific curriculum in order to gain interest and, ultimately, succeed in STEM fields.
SLATE is being implemented with the UNH NH Literacy Institutes and UNH’s Community Literacy Center, in partnership with the UNH STEM Discovery Lab, in the Manchester school system and then eventually broadened across the state.
Click here to read more about the program.
Questions? Please contact: julie.bryce@unh.edu
SLATE Tutors
SLATE Tutors (UNH students) work individually with middle school students from NH public schools. This tutoring program is online, and SLATE tutors provide their remote tutoring services from the Community Literacy Center. Most tutors work either M/W and T/Th from 10:30-12:30, depending on their class schedules. SLATE Tutors are supported by CLC staff in their lesson planning and work with youth.
Examples of work activities include: facilitating reading and math activities like word ladders, reading jokes and riddles, math games, and math facts practice.
You can read more about becoming a tutor and apply on Handshake.
SLATE Teachers
The SLATE Institute is a year-long development program that begins in the summer and extends through the school year.
It is aimed at creating teaching/learning ecosystems that support high needs students, particularly multilingual/EL students, at the intersections between STEM and Language Arts. During the SLATE Institute, you will have an opportunity to work with a range of UNH STEM and ELA educators, learn about inquiry and GLOBE (https://globe.gov), and have team time to work on building curricular units, based oncollaborations and resources.
Completion of the program includes participation in the summer institute and academic year, implementation of cross-curricular units developed by your team with SLATE-institute leaders in STEM and literacy, and sharing out of your lessons learned at the subsequent SLATE institute in 2025. Successful completion will also include a $2000 stipend.
Consideration of applications from teacher teams in the Manchester School District for SLATE’s SY24-25 cohort will begin on December 1st. Please work with your teacher teams to apply to become a SLATE teacher here.
