
What Is STEM Education Actually For? — with Dr. Patrice Johnson of Project Scientist
From aiEDU Studios by aiEDU: The AI Education Project
May 14, 2026 · 36 min · Season 1 · Episode 42
About this episode
Dr. Patrice Johnson discusses the cultural challenges in STEM education and the work of Project Scientist to empower girls in this field.
"It's not that girls aren't good at STEM. It's the confidence around 'can I do STEM?'" That's Dr. Patrice Johnson, and her quiet challenge to the dominant frame of STEM education — that the gap is technical when it's actually cultural — is the throughline of this conversation. She runs Project Scientist, a national nonprofit that puts girls into hands-on STEM and runs the Elevated Institute — a teacher-training arm built around the principles that make their own programs work: joy as a pedago...
People in this episode
Guest: Dr. Patrice Johnson
Topics covered
- STEM education
- gender confidence
- cultural gaps
- nonprofit initiatives
- teacher training
Keywords
- STEM
- education
- girls in STEM
- confidence
- Project Scientist
- teacher training
- cultural challenges
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Project Scientist
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