About

Vision

At CSL, we envision a world in which STEM education is not only innovative and inclusive—but publicly trusted, powerfully communicated, and actively defended.

Mission: What CSL Does & How CSL Does it

What We Do: Three Strategic Pillars

Pillar 1: Advancing STEM Education Excellence

CSL advances the quality, relevance, and impact of STEM education at CU Boulder while serving as a state, national, and international resource for education research and evidence-based practice and innovation.

This pillar focuses on:

  • Improving STEM learning and teaching across disciplines
  • Elevating CU Boulder’s leadership in STEM education and education research
  • Sharing models, research methods, and innovative practices across and beyond campus

Pillar 2: Building Capacity and Infrastructure for Transformation

CSL builds and sustains the institutional infrastructure needed to transform STEM education by supporting research, professional development, and talent development across the K–20 continuum.

This pillar focuses on:

  • Supporting STEM education research within and across STEM departments
  • Educator, preparation and professional growth
  • Long-term capacity-building beyond one-off initiatives
  • Connecting CU to regional, national and international partners.

Pillar 3: Driving Systemic Change and Public Impact

CSL catalyzes systemic change in STEM education by integrating interdisciplinary communities, incubating new initiatives, strengthening equity and access, influencing policy and practice, and engaging the public.

This pillar focuses on:

  • Leading research on institutional and organizational change in higher education
  • Coordinating and sustaining innovation and reform efforts with vetted models of change
  • Launching and evaluating new programs and new PIs
  • Advancing opportunity, access, and inclusion
  • Connecting STEM education to policy, communities, and public discourse

How CSL Does It: Cross-Cutting Functions

These span all three pillars and define CSL’s operating model. CSL operates as:

A Container
Providing a stable home for integrative, local-to-global perspectives on STEM education.

A Connector and Convenor
Linking disciplines, colleges, programs, partners, and communities to promote increased collaboration

An Incubator
Supporting the design, launch, evaluation, and scaling of pioneering STEM education initiatives and leaders.

A Public Engagement and Capacity-Building Hub
Equipping educators to strengthen their practice, communicate effectively, engage diverse publics, and build trust with confidence, credibility, and humility.

An Advocate for STEM education
Showing up as an institutional support for pro-STEM policy, practice, and STEM education as a public good.

Why Now?

STEM education is at an inflection point. Public trust in science is being tested, misinformation spreads faster than evidence, and educators are increasingly asked not only to innovate—but to explain, defend, and connect their work to societal needs. At this moment, incremental change is not enough. The Center for STEM Learning at CU Boulder is stepping forward as a national model for coordinated action—bringing together disciplines, incubating bold educational approaches, and equipping STEM leaders to engage students and the public with clarity and confidence. Investment now ensures that STEM education does not retreat in the face of challenge, but rises to meet it – when we need it most.

CU Alignment Statement

Aligned with the mission and vision of the University of Colorado Boulder, the Center for STEM Learning advances the university’s commitment to research excellence, sustainability leadership, and public impact by serving as a coordinated, cross-disciplinary hub for STEM education and engagement. CSL strengthens collaborative and inclusive research and creative work ecosystems, supports interdisciplinary innovation through internal and external partnerships, and advances the societal impact and public engagement of STEM education and research. Through sustainability-focused programs, strategic convenings, and coordinated outreach, CSL contributes to CU Boulder’s global leadership in sustainability while aligning resources, infrastructure, and events to amplify institutional visibility, collaboration, and impact across the state of Colorado and beyond.

CSL History

The CSL was officially formed on December 20, 2012, is currently housed in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, connect to more than 75 programs and projects in STEM education, and represents tens of millions of dollars in grants at CU-Boulder; many CSL programs are nationally recognized and replicated.

CSL is an outcome of the NSF Grant "I3: Towards a Center for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education." In 2008, Chancellor DiStefano was awarded this NSF grant, which was proposed in response to the National Academies' Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, which calls for four avenues of action to support U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics competitiveness for the coming century; these are, in priority order, to: "focus on actions in K-12 education (10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds), research (Sowing the Seeds), higher education (Best and Brightest), and economic policy (Incentives for Innovation)." The principal investigators of this grant felt that CU-Boulder was particularly well poised to take direct and immediate action on these issues through developing and integrating three currently existing lines of NSF funded work: (1) undergraduate and graduate course transformation, (2) undergraduate and graduate teacher preparation, and (3) discipline-based education research among faculty, students, and post-doctoral scholars. The purpose of the NSF grant was to create a STEM education center that will: (a) integrate the three lines of inquiry and development described above, (b) retain the status and rigor offered through science and engineering department identity, (c) expand the reach of the thriving STEM education community to include more departments and participants, and (d) establish CU-Boulder as a national hub of STEM education. Until CSL was launched, this initiative was known as Integrating STEM Education (iSTEM).