The Brooklyn STEAM Center is located in the heart of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a 300-acre industrial park with over 500 businesses in cutting-edge industries. Students participate in meaningful, engaged learning at this location through internships, apprenticeships, and projects with industry partners. All students specialize in one of five pathways: Computer Science and Information Technology; Construction Technology; Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management; Design and Engineering; and Film and Media. Each pathway is approved by the New York State Education Department. Within each pathway, students have access to an industry-approved curriculum, engaging partnerships, supportive work-based learning experiences including an internship program, and stackable industry credentials. Through a partnership with the City University of New York, STEAM students also earn college credits for full preparation for college and career.
Brooklyn STEAM Center is part of Imagine NYC Schools, a dynamic partnership between New York City Public Schools and XQ to design innovative, high-quality schools with equity and excellence at their core. Students, teachers, families, and community members are coming together to imagine high schools that are engaging, inclusive, and student-centered—schools that prepare all students for a wide variety of postsecondary options, and all the future has to offer. Learn more at NYC + XQ.
Brooklyn STEAM’s location in the Brooklyn Navy Yard means students experience workplace immersion. Every day they visit a school that resembles a workplace, learning professionalism and building their social capital.
Co-locating with various businesses, from a nanotronics firm to a film studio, also means that students get access to and feedback from industry professionals. An industry Advisory Council meets regularly with school staff to advise on curriculum and offer work-based learning to students, and to give feedback on student projects. For example, when a group of students in the Construction, Technology, and Design and Engineering pathways collaborated to address housing insecurity by transforming a 20-foot ISO shipping container into a livable space, FullStack Modular, a tenant at the Navy Yard, provided the space and guidance, and the finished project was presented to Advisory Council members from the students’ respective pathways.
