K-12 STEM Center's Monthly
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Team Newsletter
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Happy Hallow's Eve Weekend!
We are well into the fall semester at USC, and the hustle and bustle of the beginning of the school year has officially settled down. Staff, faculty, and students alike have all adjusted to our new COVID routines, and we the IDEA team have been diligently working, ensuring our year-round programs are smooth sailing through the autumn season.
The IDEA team has been especially busy, creating a website that will be solely dedicated to the work we are doing at the Center and will also serve as an archive for this newsletter. As a whole, the Center has recently focused its efforts to better engage the parents and families whose children participate in our programming. I share this with you all in hope that if you too have little ones of your own, that you as well are engaged with all of the work that they do, especially on this weekend of tricking or treating!
Before I wrap this up, I would like to highlight the IDEA team's leader, Dr. Darin Gray, co-director of the Center who was recently interviewed for USC Viterbi's podcast, Escape Velocity, for its fifth episode. Keep reading to find the link and article to his interview in this month's newsletter.
As always, please share and forward this newsletter to anyone whom you may think would like to know the work that the IDEA team is doing at the Center.
Fight on!
Anne Areta
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Staff Highlight: Dr. Darin Gray |
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"As a Black engineer in the 1980s, Darin Gray was looked upon as a rare, unique phenomenon. He quit his high-paying job to join K-12 education, seeking to change this."
By Adam Smith and Marc Ballon
I highly recommend volunteering the next 25 minutes of your life to listen to Darin's interview. Learn more about his story, and what drives him to do the work that he does.
Working with Darin for the last 8 months has taught me that he is not a fan of being the center of attention. He will go as far as not mentioning his birthday in order to avoid the good wishes and celebrations from his colleagues. That is why I do suggest you read this article and listen to his story because although he does not enjoy the spotlight, he is a person that does deserve to be uplifted and praised, recognized for his accomplishments and unique career path that has led him to where he is now.
Please click on the link below to read the article and listen to Darin's interview on Escape Velocity.
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Project Reviews and Future Plans |
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African American Initiative Update |
NSBE Jr is a part of our African American Initiative which is part of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access efforts of the K-12 STEM Center. Last month, we highlighted that the Center hosted its first NSBE Jr chapter meeting in-person, on campus.
Due to the popularity of Khali Cannad's NSBE Jr Southern California chapter, Anne and Darin have reached out to schools to create more NSBE Jr chapters across Southern California. 42nd Street Elementary School, Grace Hopper STEM Academy, and Saint Mary's Academy have all expressed interest in starting NSBE Jr. Starting with these three schools allows us to tap into public, charter, and private school systems to further expand our African American Initiative outreach.
Darin and Anne understood that NSBE does not provide a curriculum/lessons for its junior chapters so they are creating curricula for elementary, middle, and high school students. The curricular approach, Coding Automation/AI Robotics Environmental Economics/Entrepreneurship Rocketry - Projects Activities Themes Heuristics (CAREER PATH) is a STEM framework that integrates culturally relevant concepts and real-world applications to the 21st century STEM fields of Coding, Automation/AI, Robotics, Environmental Engineering, & Rocketry through Projects, Activities, Thematic lessons, & Heuristic problem-solving techniques. CAREER PATH offers curricula, USC STEM student support, as well as tools and equipment to provide advanced, authentic STEM experiences for elementary, middle, and high school students.
We will be hiring USC STEM graduate and undergraduate students who will serve as our "content masters" who will be working with Eva Peñuelas, a teacher based in Inglewood, CA that we will be hiring to create culturally relevant activities based on the CAREER PATH subject areas using existing STEM Center resources. She will also create guides for activities that non-STEM adults can use to help elementary, middle, and high school students with:
- Conceptual skills-building activities
- Introduction to technology activities
- Selecting and researching relevant NAE Grand Challenges
- Rapid prototyping of student ideas
- Applying the Engineering Design Process
- Conducting Critical Design review
- Giving Presentations
Anne and Darin are both equally excited to start CAREER PATH to support our up-and-coming NSBE Jr chapters.
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Society of Women Engineers: Fall Fun Fair |
Mission Science Director, Jennifer Kolbauer and USC student organization- Society of Women Engineers (SWE) "Fall Fun Fair" is in action! It is currently taking place today, October 29th, at 2:30pm. Jennifer and SWE have provided a safe and inviting space where all students are welcome. This event has various fun experiments such as glow-in-the dark spin and other Halloween-themed activities. This is also an opportunity for youth to ask questions to USC's women engineers about life as college student in a STEM field and what kind of careers they plan to go into.
For more information about SWE, click here
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Computer Science Education Week at the K-12 STEM Center |
Monica is currently helping the K-12 STEM Center plan for this year's CS Ed Week. She is making sure that the event details strive to meet our IDEA mission. For instance, that teachers, students, and families have access to the information via the CS Ed Week page:
In addition, the current sessions spread across the K-12 grade bands (elementary, middle, and high school) to inspire all students to explore CS.
We also plan to provide multiple training sessions for teachers to help them engage their students to ultimately inspire the next generation of CS pioneers!
Please visit our page for CS Ed Week details. We will have more sessions and RSVP links coming soon! Please stay tuned!
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Suggested Reading for the Month |
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Applying a Transformative Justice Approach to Encourage the Participation of Black and Latina Girls in Computing |
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A Commitment to Systems Change |
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Global protests and civil unrest in 2020 has renewed the world’s interest in addressing injustice due to structural racism and oppression toward Black and Latinx people in all aspects of society, including computing. This article argues that to address and repair the harm created by institutions, policies, and practices that have systematically excluded Black and Latina girls from computer science, an intersectional, transformative justice approach must be taken. The article shares 8 years of experience designing, implementing, and studying Digital Youth Divas, a programmatic and systemic approach to encouraging middle school Black and Latina girls to participate in STEM.
To learn more about this study, click on the link below:
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ACM Transactions on Computing Education, Vol. 21, No. 4, Article 27 |
The L.A. Compact is a collaboration between Los Angeles's local organizations to support the education of young people in the area. UNITE-LA is the lead organization. USC's own President Carol Folt has committed the university to the initiative. The Compact aims to close the education and workforce gaps caused by systemic inequities and racism. Recognizing that no single institution alone can solve our most pressing, complex education and workforce challenges, the Compact brings together the region’s most prominent leaders to collectively lead transformative change.
To read more about the collaboration, click on the link below:
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Belonging-Centered Instruction |
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An Observation Approach toward Establishing Inclusive Mathematics Calassrooms |
Historically, students of color have faced persistent threats to their sense of belonging in U.S. schools and classrooms. To address the alienation many students, particularly students of color, experience in mathematics classrooms, this research team conceptualizes a pedagogical framework for establishing inclusive mathematical learning environments: Belonging-Centered Instruction (BCI). Because of the power and access teachers possess in meeting students’ belongingness needs, Belonging-Centered Instruction is emphasized as the essential provision of social and pedagogical opportunities that mitigate students’ feelings of alienation, exclusion, and dehumanization (i.e., experiencing the racial and cultural oppression in mathematical spaces that they encounter in broader society) in mathematics classrooms.
To have a deeper understanding of what BCI work looks like, click on the link below:
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Fostering Spaces for Black Joy in STEM-Rich Making and Beyong |
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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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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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