K-12 STEM Center's Monthly
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Team Newsletter
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Bienvenidos!
This month of September kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month, so naturally, this month's newsletter will be touching on the many initiatives we have taken at the Center that address and serve our Latinx/Hispanic students and families. It goes without saying that regardless of the month, we are always working towards the advancement and progress of all underrepresented students in STEM.
However, this year's theme for Hispanic Heritage month is, "Esperanza: A Celebration of Hispanic Heritage and Hope" and it made me think about how little I celebrate my own Hispanic heritage. My father and the last name we share is from the Basque Country in Spain and my mother was born in Guatemala to two Jamaican immigrant parents. Despite not carrying the traits we typically associate with Latinx/Hispanic people, I am very much a part of this community. Inspired by this year's theme for the month ahead, I decided I will take the time to understand why I don't celebrate this facet of my identity enough, and what are my steps moving forward so that I can celebrate this fact about myself proudly.
Lastly, I encourage the sharing of this newsletter to friends and colleagues who would find interest in the work that the IDEA Team does at Viterbi's K-12 STEM Center.
Happy Hispanic Heritage Month.
Fight on!
Anne Areta
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Project Reviews and Future Plans |
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Hispanic Heritage Month Highlights at the Center |
IDEA team member Monica Lopez has taken lead at the Center to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Last week she featured the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) for hosting a virtual HSF College 101, a FREE bilingual program, designed to help middle and high school students, and their parents, prepare, plan, and pay for college. For more information about HSF, please visit: https://www.hsf.net/
We want to spread awareness of programs that offer free resources and make that information accessible to our families and students.
This week, Monica will highlight our K-12 STEM Center Staff and student workers, followed by current Viterbi faculty who identify as LatinX/Hispanic. This will showcase how diverse our current staff is and offers the opportunity for guardians as well as the community to learn more about what drives our staff to support our students.
SHINE is assisting MESA and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) a USC student organization by advertising STEM activities, workshops, and opportunities to our students.
To learn more about SHPE, click on the link below.
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Society of Women Engineers: Fall Fun Fair |
Currently Mission Science Director, Jennifer is collaborating with USC student organization- Society of Women Engineers (SWE) to Coordinate "Fall Fun Fair," which will take place the Friday before Halloween-October 29th at 2:30pm. Jennifer is coordinating with one of the local Good Neighbor Mission Science elementary schools in order to provide a safe and inviting space where all student are welcome. This event will have various fun experiments such as glow-in-the dark spin and other Halloween-related activities. This will also be an opportunity for youth to ask questions to these 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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MESA's Academic Coordinator and IDEA team member Alexandra Guiterrez is working diligently to re-establish partnerships with schools to join MESA again. Specifically, schools with large Latin(e/x) and African American student populations. To help this initiative, Anne has joined MESA's efforts and is providing additional support for targeted MESA schools with significant African American student populations.
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Center Support for Spanish Speaking Families |
To ensure that we are following through on the A in IDEA (access), the IDEA team is working in collaboration with translators to make sure that we are providing program materials and information in both English and Spanish. We have started translating paperwork for the Center's Mission Science program, as well as create a glossary of key terms that we use consistently at the center for translations. Our goal is to have everything on the Center's website in English and Spanish. |
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African American Initiative Team Update
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On Sunday, September 26th USC's student organization NSBE and the Center hosted its first NSBE Jr chapter meeting in-person, on campus. NSBE professionals, college students, and K-12 students met again after a year and a half of hosting NSBE Jr meetings virtually on Zoom.
The turnout was substantial, with the largest group being our 8th-12th graders who this year will be participating in the Ten80 Student Racing Challenge, NSBE's robotics competition for NSBE Jr.
For more information about Ten80 Racing, click here.
More families than ever before have joined Khali Cannad's NSBE Jr's Southern California club. Considering the interest in NSBE is at an all-time high, Anne is working on helping schools open and run their own NSBE Jr clubs. We have started this initiative with Grace Hopper STEM Academy and Saint Mary's Academy. Anne is aiming to facilitate the opening and registering of these new NSBE Jr clubs at these schools, and ultimately create two new successful NSBE Jr chapters this year.
More information about NSBE can be found here.
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Suggested Reading for the Month |
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NSF INCLUDES National Network |
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Wealth, Equity, and STEM: Increasing STEM Access and Participation of Students from Economically Disadvantaged Backgrounds |
This research brief is primarily intended for individuals who work within institutions and systems to broaden participation in STEM, as well as for individuals who wish to support these efforts such as researchers and funders. It summarizes evidence-based strategies that increase STEM access and participation for elementary to postsecondary students facing economic hardships. It also includes a discussion on heightened barriers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
To read more about this brief, click on the link below.
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An Overview of Current After School - OST STEM Programs for Girls |
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Canadian Out of School Time (OST) STEM Programs |
Historically, there has been a gender gap within the STEM pipeline, resulting in the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. Current efforts, both within and outside of educational institutions, have been developed to target girls’ specific needs with the aim of supporting girls’ interest and engagement in STEM. The following paper examines the social and cultural factors that perpetuate the gender gap in STEM. It also provides a review and critique of six existing Canadian Out of School Time (OST) STEM programs that focus on girls and the principles used in their development and implementation.
Click on the link below to read more.
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The KAPOR CENTER & CSforCA |
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The California Computer Science Access Report |
Given the significant role that technology plays in California’s economy, computer science (CS) education is foundational to the success of its future workforce and it must take bold steps to ensure that all of California’s students are sufficiently prepared. This report examines the landscape of computer science education across the state of California and examines who has access, who participates, and where equity gaps by race, gender, income, and geography continue to persist. Findings indicate that, while some progress has been made in expanding access to computer science education, much work remains to increase equity in access and enrollment, particularly among Black, Indigenous, Latinx students, girls, low-income students, and rural students.
For the full report, please click on the link below to go to KAPOR's website.
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Research in Science & Technological Education |
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Gender Differences in Classroom Emotional Climate: A Rasch Analysis |
To address declining enrolments in science and other STEM subjects in high school and university, particularly disproportionately low enrolments of females in physics, engineering, and computer sciences, integrated STEM programs are becoming more popular. However, few studies have investigated classroom experiences or gender differences in the effects of participation in integrated STEM projects on students’ attitudes towards continuing to study STEM subjects.
Learn more about this research 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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