K-12 STEM Center's Monthly
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Team Newsletter
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Happy Black History Month!
What a month February has been, or am I the only one who feels this way? From omicron outbreaks to Russian Olympic women's ice skate scandals, to more Russian scandals including the invasion of Ukraine, it can be difficult to think of the positive that has happened in the last 28 days.
Despite what is happening around the world, I would like to touch on this year's Black History Month theme, "Black Health and Wellness." There was one event that happened just three days ago that was particularly very good for my Black health and wellness, and that was the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court.
As we currently witness what looks like the first land war in Europe since WWII, the news of Kentanji Brown Jackson's nomination is the writing of future civil rights history and we all get to witness it as it is happening today. At this moment in time, little girls and young women get to witness the first Black woman vice president and along her side, the first future Black female supreme court justice.
It is facts like this that give me hope and excitement for the future.
Lastly, just one more point to close this intro: Although today technically brings Black History Month to a close, every day of every month of every year is the right time to celebrate Black history and its people.
As always, please share and forward this newsletter to anyone whom you may think would like to know or would benefit from the work that the IDEA team is doing at the Center.
Fight on!
Anne Areta
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Project Reviews and Future Plans |
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In a previous newsletter, the announcement for the preparation and planning of CAREER PATH and the Center becoming an NSBE Jr club was made. It is shared with great excitement that the NSBE Jr portal is up and running and ready to register students to join the Center's NSBE Jr club.
If you are a school administrator interested in your students doing exciting, hands-on STEM activities that will prepare them for the jobs of the future, you can register students here using our Center form.
Schools that are registering their students with the K-12 STEM Center's NSBE Jr club will have exclusive access to CAREER PATH. CAREER PATH is our library of lessons and activities that cover subjects such as Coding, Automation/AI, Robotics, Environmental Engineering /Economics, and Rocketry. You can check out our materials such as Circuit Scribes, microcomputers like Raspberry Pi, and even create and print 3D designs with our printers.
Websites are currently under construction to share more information about CAREER PATH, NSBE Jr, and our partner's NSBE Jr club.
Be on the lookout in the future for when those are live!
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SHINE - Deadline is March 1st! |
TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY TO SUBMIT APPLICATIONS!
Time to apply to USC Viterbi's Summer High School Intensive in Next-Generation Engineering (SHINE) Program is quickly slipping away! If you encouraged any high schoolers to apply, check in on them! The opportunity to be a part of SHINE and the projects SHINE has available this summer will soon end.
If your future SHINE applicant needs assistance please have them attend walk-in hours.
Monica will have walk-in hours from 3 pm-6 pm on March 1st.
No appointment is required.
Monica can:
- Answer any questions or concerns you may have
- Walk you through the application process and timeline
- Review your application materials
- Review the lab opportunities with you and more!
Please click on the image of the flyer to enlarge it.
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Mission Science Lead Instructor, Ariana Robles. Nominated for USC Latino Alumni Association Scholarship |
TMission Science Director Jennifer Kolbauer is recommending one of her lead instructors, Ariana Robles, for the USC Latino Alumni Association Scholarship, which she is both deserving and is necessary for her continued success as a female LatinX student pursuing a STEM degree at USC.
Ariana originally was connected to the K-12 STEM Center through the Viterbi Volunteer Impact Program (VIP) just this last fall 2021 and was recently hired in Spring, as she quickly proved to be a dedicated and inspiring instructor that went above and beyond the call of duty.
Part of her role as an instructor for Mission Science is to lead weekly hands-on STEM activities to neighboring schools that serve economically disadvantaged youth, over 80% of which are LatinX, half of which are female students. Ariana is not only a facilitator of STEM lessons, but she exemplifies a woman in STEM pursuing environmental engineering as a career aspiration.
Girls and those of color in STEM who normally may not envision themselves as scientists or engineers have the opportunity to engage with Ariana on a weekly basis. This not only builds a rapport with individual students but also lends it to witnessing a LatinX women in STEM actively pursuing an engineering degree. She serves as a role model and consistent mentor to the students, who look forward to her visit to the classroom each week. Her presence alone allows women and BIPOC students to visualize themselves in STEM, and encourages them to potentially become someone they may have never envisioned, had they not been exposed to this unique experience.
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February 22nd, 2022 - Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) + Parent Info Session |
We would like to give special thanks to LADPW for partnering with the K-12 STEM Center and sponsoring our Virtual Parent Workshops Series.
Last Tuesday, the Center hosted its second of three virtual workshops we are hosting for the 21-22 academic year.
We want to thank our families who participate in our workshops to learn how to support their children who are interested in pursuing STEM. We provide tips and tools on how to interact with schools or teachers in the classroom when it comes to discussing STEM, and best practices to assist and endorse their kids who want to engage with STEM programs.
We have one more session lined up in 2022! Be on the lookout for the future announcement of our third and final parent workshop of the year.
Click on the image of the flyer to enlarge it and mark the date in your calendars for April!
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Suggested Reading for the Month
The articles shared below are readings we've shared in the past in which the emphasis of the research is focused on Black students in STEM from primary school to higher education.
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The Journal of Negro Education |
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Being vs. Becoming: Transcending STEM Identity Development through Afropessimism, Moving toward a Black X Consciousness in STEM |
Research investigating Black student engagement in STEM postsecondary education connects their racial identity to STEM identity development and persistence. How Black students perceive and understand their Blackness in relationship to STEM learning environments to embody their identity; however, are not fully illuminated. This study presents insights from 44 Black undergraduate students studying STEM at a predominantly White institution (PWI). Using phenomenological focus group interviews, analyzed through the Afropessimist principles of the afterlife of slavery and anti-Blackness, the authors find that Black students’ rationale for coping mechanisms employed is shaped by individualism and Black collectivism. They name this rationale Black X Consciousness and provide implications for its importance in Black student STEM education research.
Read more about this research here. |
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Fostering Spaces for Black Joy in STEM-Rich Making and Beyond |
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Journal of Effective Teaching in Higher Education |
What does it mean to express Black joy and loving blackness through STEM-rich making? What does it mean for Black youth in community-based, youth-focused makerspaces to express Black joy and loving blackness? We look at how Black youth alongside their facilitators co-create spaces of Black joy through making. These makerspaces are located at two local Boys and Girls Clubs in the US Midwest and the Southeast.
Learn more about makerspaces by clicking on the link below:
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Impact of In-School Suspension |
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Black Girls’ Math Course-Taking in School |
Diversifying the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce has been a priority in the United States for several decades. Public and private corporations have invested immensely in increasing the STEM readiness of gendered and racialized populations. Despite these efforts, persistent inequities remain with little progress. Mathematics is an important foundational component of science, technology, and engineering fields, which are domains in which Black girls are underrepresented. Black girls are more likely to receive in-school suspension in comparison to their non-Black peers. This study explores the relationship between in-school suspension and the highest math course completed in a multi-level analysis of Black female students.
To learn more about this study, click on the link below.
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Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto |
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Special Theme: Responding to Anti‑Blackness in Science, Mathematics, Technology & STEM Education |
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided yet more evidence of the impacts of injustice across intersecting raced, gendered, and classed lines. An intensified global uprising against anti-Black violence in response to the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd has amplified a reckoning with the ongoing effects of the “global state of emergency of anti-Blackness” in all of its enduring forms and violence. The current time of reckoning has inspired an interrogation of anti-Blackness in the sciences, such as seen in the emergence of social media movements such as #BlackinNeuro and #ShutDownSTEM. Inspired by the disruptive potentialities of the moment, the articles in this special theme offer considerations of possibilities for STEM professions and STEM education to become sites of liberatory practices and conceptual orientations that act to disrupt anti-Blackness.
To continue reading, click on the link below.
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Lastly, we at the Center want to give special thanks to Betty Lou Gross, Fiserv and James Carter Esquire, James Carter & Associates LLC for their support of the STEM Center's efforts to increase engagement and outreach of African American students.
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USC Viterbi K-12 STEM Center | University of Southern California | Website
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