June 23, 2026 – June 25, 2026

Join Us

The 8th Annual STEMS² Symposium – Building Now for the Future We Envision, will take place Tuesday, June 23, 2026 through Thursday, June 25, 2026 with opportunities to engage both in person and online. In-person experiences will include activities that physically engage participants with people and places around O‘ahu. Online experiences may include workshops, poster sessions, talk stories and paper presentations. Whether you participate locally on Oʻahu or from a distance, join fellow STEMS² enthusiasts who share a passion for exploring the roles that place, culture, and identity play in interdisciplinary education.

About

We invite all stakeholders (e.g., educators, youth, researchers, cultural practitioners, community partners, and community members) to celebrate how diversity in thought, culture, place, and perspective fuels our collective well-being. This year’s theme, recognizes that we are navigating a time of rapid change and painful disruption. Yet within the demolition lies our greatest opportunity to make visible injustices previously hidden by norms and to now build the foundations for the future we envision.

Building that future means courageously examining what must be protected and sustained, what might be reinstated that was previously displaced/hidden, and reimagining the systems that no longer serve us. This moment requires that we listen deeply and nurture relationships grounded in respect for land, culture, and one another.

We will explore the following questions:

• What future do we envision and who is it for?
• What long-standing and hidden injustices have been exposed?
• How do diverse experiences and identities enhance the way we teach and learn?
• What does it look like to build now for a just, sustainable, and thriving future?
• In what ways do our relationships—with STEM, land, culture, and community—help us maintain, protect, and regenerate what matters most?
• How do we lean into spaces of possibility, using the challenges before us as catalysts for better ways of being and learning together?
• What is the application of the STEMS² Framework at this moment in time?

Diversity, in all its forms, offers the strength, creativity, and wisdom needed to engage the questions above. We hope you will join us at this year’s annual gathering and be part of a community seeking to create vibrant pathways toward collective resilience, innovation, and hope.

Ways to Engage

This three-day experience will include opportunities to engage both online and in person. Participants are welcome to join locally on Oʻahu or from a distance. Whether a presenter or a participant, we encourage everyone to contribute to making the STEMS² Symposium a place where all attendees can engage in the pillars of STEMS² while being a teacher and a learner at all times.

Session Types

Grounded in the value of Aʻo (to teach and learn in a reciprocal relationship), we work to create inclusive, interactive spaces to hear as many voices as possible in multiple session formats.

Talk Story – (In person or Online) – A critical discussion led by the presenter on a focused experience or research topic. It is a space where people come together to have a critical conversation and connect with others on a deeper level around a focus topic introduced by the presenter. The emphasis is on having a conversation rather than a structured presentation or debate. It’s a gathering centered around communication, not a one-way delivery of information (30 min).

Paper Presentation (In person or Online) – A session focused on sharing a structured presentation on a focused experience or research topic followed by time for Q&A and discussion (30 min).

Workshops (In person or Online) – Presenters share skills, knowledge, and resources with the goal of developing participants’ access to new skills, forms of knowledge, and resources (60 min for online sessions or 2.5 hours for in-person sessions).

STEMS² Service-Learning Experience (In person on Oʻahu) – Presenters provide participants first-hand opportunities to engage in STEMS² Pedagogy by exploring the roles that place, culture, and identity play in interdisciplinary education at a location on Oʻahu. (3 hrs).

Community Partner & Exhibitor Tables (In person or Online) – Community partners and collaborators host exhibits, share resources, and share information about their programs and/or projects.

Networking Event (In person) – Event hosts work with the symposium committee to coordinate a casual opportunity (ex. Pau Hana) for in-person participants to gather and connect. Networking events or social gatherings will take place in the evening after the symposium programming at the host’s selected location on Oʻahu. (3 hrs).