The Florida Catholic Conference (FCC) is partnering with Eduscape to launch a Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STREAM) Coordinator Certification (CERT) program. The CERT is a comprehensive professional learning journey that equips participants with the insights, knowledge, and strategies to plan and execute a sustainable STREAM program in their school. The syllabus is aligned with the FCC STREAM Accreditation Standards and the National Catholic Benchmarks and Standards for Elementary and Secondary Schools (NSBECS).

The FCC was and remains the first statewide Catholic advocacy organization to create a STREAM Certification and respective standards for Catholic schools. Eduscape, led by a product of 18 years of Catholic education, created the STREAM Made Simple program nearly five years ago. The program integrates the Arts and Catholicity into STEM and aligns the NSBECS, Laudato Si and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. It was quite serendipitous that the program also shares extensive alignment to the FCC STREAM Accreditation.

“Our vision for STREAM Certification was to create a practical, yet rigorous set of standards that provided a framework for Catholic schools to follow when embarking on the STREAM journey. We felt there was a clear and demonstrable need to provide our schools with a roadmap to clarify that STREAM was much more than doing projects, buying products, and/or relying on a single person to “do STREAM.”

We believe STREAM is a curriculum and instructional-driven approach to supporting innovative Catholic education with STREAM practices in every classroom. The belief however was not enough, we therefore created a clear set of demonstrable standards for schools to implement.” stated Mary Camp, Associate Director for Accreditation at the FCC.

The CERT takes a blended approach, combining a two-day, hands-on foundations workshop with ten (10) asynchronous courses, virtual meet ups and a Community of Practice. Eduscape, one of the leading professional learning organizations in North America, was a natural partner in developing and running the CERT. “STEM and certainly STREAM is not about a lab or boxes of stuff with instructions. The transformative power of STREAM is to raise teacher practice across every classroom by leveraging STREAM principles to drive problem-based learning, support student-centered instruction and prepare learners with essential knowledge and skills aligned to Catholic values. It is an incredible opportunity to impact thousands of teachers and students; what started as a conversation between Mary, Deacon Scott and I is now a wonderful reality, it's truly a blessing.” stated Alex Urrea, Founder and CEO of Eduscape.