We are excited to announce the release of the final report from the Rural Informal STEM Conference of 2018.

• Fully 25% of youth live in rural areas, yet they are often invisible when STEM educational policies and programs are designed.
• Americans spend only 18.5% of their waking hours in K-12 schooling, leaving huge opportunities for STEM learning over a lifetime in other settings. (e.g. after school programs, adult and community education, family outreach, citizen science, library programs, etc.)

In September last year, a group of innovators and experts in rural STEM learning outside of school came together to address questions such as:

• How do we define rural places?
• What are promising practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion in these places?
• How can STEM programs build community support for their work?
• How can such programs assess their impacts appropriately?

The conference final report, participant bios and participant pre-conference essays are posted here.