Women’s League Child Development Center today celebrated the ribbon cutting of its new STEAM Explorers Park, an innovative outdoor discovery space designed to give infants, toddlers, and preschoolers hands-on learning opportunities in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math through nature and play.
The Park transforms underused space on the Center’s lot into a vibrant, green, exploration-rich environment where children can investigate water, light, sound, gardening, building, art, and music in an outdoor setting designed specifically for early learners.
“Children deserve access to nature and high-quality STEAM learning from the very start,” said Karen Lott, executive director of Women’s League. “The STEAM Explorers Park is about joy, curiosity, and opportunity. It provides Black and Brown children critical access to green space and early STEAM foundations that too often remain out of reach.”
Extending Award-Winning Innovation
In 2023, Women’s League opened a STEAM Learning Lab, among the first of its kind in the area for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. The Lab earned a STEM Achievement Award from the Connecticut Science Center. The STEAM Explorers Park now extends that innovation outdoors. The new space includes:
- Discovery zones for exploring water, light, and sound
- Engineering corners with materials for building ramps, towers, and bridges
- Farm-to-classroom gardens with abundant pollinator and vegetable beds and a large greenhouse
- Creativity zones with weatherproof easels, paints, musical instruments, storytelling spaces, mud kitchens, and sensory tables
- A vibrant mural created by celebrated Hartford-area muralist Micaela Levesque, with contributions from young learners
The Park will also serve as a community hub, hosting STEAM nights and weekend workshops for families, professional development for educators, and collaborative events with local preschools, libraries, and museums.
Addressing a Growing Equity Gap
Nationally, nature-based preschools have grown 25-fold in the past decade. Yet only three percent of students in those programs are Black and seven percent are Hispanic.
At the same time, children today spend less time outdoors than any generation before them. In urban communities, access to nature can be limited by systemic inequities in urban design (such as excess concrete or industrial facilities), safety concerns, and environmental disparities (such as pollutants). Research consistently shows that nature-based learning strengthens brain development, emotional resilience, and academic readiness.
Women’s League is working to close that access gap — ensuring that children of color build foundational STEAM skills early and see themselves as future scientists, engineers, creators, builders, and innovators. “This Park is what equity in early education looks like,” said Karen Lott. “It is not enrichment. It is not extra. It is essential.”
About Women’s League Child Development Center
Founded in 1917 by the wives of African American ministers, Women’s League Child Development Center is licensed to serve up to 200 children annually, providing high-quality early childhood education for Greater Hartford children.
Photo by Alvaro Balderas: https://www.pexels.com/photo/smiling-boy-in-pink-polo-shirt-in-garden-20183393/
