By: Halee Powers, KSAT-12 | Read it >
The Texas Education Agency and national nonprofit Learning Undefeated have announced they will debut eight new mobile STEM labs next year.
Learning Undefeated has STEM education programs across 12 states. The nonprofit began in Maryland but expanded to Texas following Hurricane Harvey. The nonprofit loaned an unused mobile lab to schools affected by Harvey, and that’s when they decided to expand their programs nationwide.
“The more people that we can engage in STEM careers, the more innovative we’re going to be,” said Jennifer Colvin, Chief Innovation Officer at Learning Undefeated.
Currently, Texas has one mobile STEM lab traveling across the state to bring STEM-based experiments to classrooms.
The lab is a 50-foot trailer with 600 square feet of classroom space inside. It is built with chemical laboratory-resistant surfaces and eight-inch screens on the walls that function as Android tablets.
“Lots of fun, different ways to engage with the students and involve integrated technology, rather than teaching the technology independently,” Colvin said.
This lab was part of a pilot program for the last four years in partnership with the Texas Education Agency. Recently, the TEA announced it would be giving Learning Undefeated $7 million in grants to help build eight more mobile STEM labs.
Two of the eight labs are expected to hit the road in March 2025. The other six will be ready to visit schools starting next fall.
“We’ll be running three programs by the end of this school year and then through the summer. The rest of the labs will be built so that all nine will hit the road in time for the upcoming 2025-26 school year,” Colvin said.
The labs will work as mini hubs throughout the state, serving regions and visiting as many schools as possible in each area.
“Our teams don’t have offices that they go to. They don’t have a parking lot that they return to all the time. So our lab is 100% deployed on the road, and the team works from that lab,” Colvin said.
There will be one lab dedicated to the San Antonio region. Each lab will see an average of 30 schools in a given school year.
“My goal would be to serve marginalized communities first, those who may be underrepresented in STEM careers,” Colvin said.
When labs visit a school, they stay for one week at a time. During that week, instructors work with teachers to integrate STEM learning into the school day.
“They’re working with the teachers to model those STEM activities that we hope the teachers will start to adopt in their classroom,” Colvin said.
Lab instructors lead students through engineering design challenges, allowing students to build and test their products.
“Ninety-seven percent of our teachers say that the experience met or exceeded their expectations,” Colvin said.
Applications for the mobile STEM lab for the 2025-2026 school year will not open until April 2025. The STEM labs visit classrooms from kindergarten through eighth grade. When that application opens, you can apply here.
