Osmo Donates STEAM Kits to Schools and Orgs in Chicago & Evanston

Osmo Cares, the charitable arm of award-winning STEAM brand Osmo, whose products are used in over 30,000 classrooms and 2.5 million homes nationwide, announces the donation of 9,200 Osmo sampler kits to children and educators in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois, including Evanston/Skokie School District 65, Chicago Public Schools, and community organizations. This donation, valued at $92,000, was facilitated by team members at the Center for Excellence in Computer Science Education at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy’s Office of Community Education Partnerships.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first closed schools in March last year, Osmo began brainstorming ways to help schools and families across the country. Northwestern University alumnus and Osmo’s director of products Felix Hu reached out to his former advisor and mentor, Mike Horn, associate professor of learning sciences and computer science at Northwestern, for advice on how to facilitate a donation of Osmo’s games to Chicago-area students.

Horn connected Hu with team members leading the Center for Excellence in Computer Science Education (CECSE). Leveraging partnerships with Chicago Public Schools (CPS), city agencies, and community organizations, the team connected them with Osmo, which made a significant donation to youth and families throughout Chicago. These collaborations strive to increase computer science, coding, and STEM opportunities, for children and educators.

The CECSE, a partnership with Apple’s Everyone Can Code and App Dev with Swift programs and CPS, also identified possible recipients through its ongoing work looking at the computer science and coding infrastructure in Chicago.

The Osmo sampler kit includes the Osmo base which is designed to hold an iPad or Fire, a reflector which allows Osmo to read a device and the physical area of the desktop in front of the tablet, and access to seven different games and apps. Osmo makes educational hands-on learning games for kids ages 5-10+ that teach literacy, math, coding, drawing, spatial skills, and more. Kids play with Osmo by manipulating physical objects in front of a digital world shown on their iPad or Fire tablets.

For instance, in Coding Awbie, an educational game Hu had helped to develop while working in Horn’s Tangible Interaction Design and Learning (TIDAL) lab, young children learn how to write lines of code by connecting and arranging physical coding blocks. In Tangram, players think through spatial relations to build increasingly complex shapes from smaller ones.

Kits were distributed as follows:

• CPS’s Office of Computer Science received 5,000 kits; another 2,000 went to the Youth Services Division of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services.
• Project Exploration, a community non-profit working “to change the face of science” by encouraging those who traditionally haven’t pursued scientific careers, received 500 Osmo kits.
• Joseph E. Hill Early Childhood Center in Evanston, part of Evanston/Skokie School District 65, received 400 Osmo kits.
• At Northwestern, the School of Education and Social Policy’s Office of Community Education Partnerships distributed 900 kits among two programs: Digital Divas, which provides STEM programming and support for middle school girls and their parents; and the Baxter Center for Science Education, which offers teachers high caliber science training and resources.
• The Masters of Science in Education program at the School of Education and Social Policy received 400 kits for teacher candidates.

The Office of Computer Science at CPS was able to pilot a program with the Osmo’s this fall, despite COVID. Kris Beck, Instructional Coach said, “We are very excited to continue to roll out the devices in our Pre-K classrooms and in our Cluster Programs. The Osmo devices provide our youngest students a new way to interact with technology in a creative, exciting and age appropriate way.”

The Center for Excellence in Computer Science Education develops, implements and tracks equitable in-school and out-of-school computer science and coding education for children and adults. The team designs effective, sustainable, and scalable models in educator professional learning and advanced level computer science curricula and programs for youth throughout communities in Chicago.

Osmo is building a universe of hands-on play experiences that nourish the minds of children by unleashing the power of imagination. The company brings physical tools into the digital world through augmented reality and its proprietary reflective artificial intelligence. Founded in 2013 by ex-Google engineers Pramod Sharma and Jerome Scholler, the Osmo Play System fuses digital gameplay and physical interaction to create fun and nutritious play experiences designed for all kids. Osmo is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Learn more at playosmo.com. For schools, visit playosmo.com/schools.