We are a new member, and our work takes place in Machias Maine, which has a population of roughly 2,200. In fact, the entire county (which takes 3 hours to drive across in the winter) has a population of 32,000. We have been doing organized STEM work for a year here in Machias, and have signed on just about every institutional partner that it is possible to have. We have done a thorough mapping of our assets as part of an NSF grant.
We’re interested in other members who are working in similarly dispersed, small sites and who may be part of rural education networks. Questions we are interested in: What are the special challenges you face in very small ecosystems? How is your definition of “scaling” different than that of bigger sites?