Skip to main navigation

Catalogue Blog

Building a Community within STEM: An unexpected result from our Latina SciGirls program

DJxvH0KW4AUeR1m

In 2016, the Children’s Science Center?was selected as one of sixteen science centers from across the U.S. to receive a grant from Twin Cities Public Television and the National Science Foundation to implement a program for young Latinas over the course of three years in conjunction with PBS SciGirls. We were confident that we could provide the girls in the program a fun, unique educational experience, but the unintended outcome of creating a supportive and caring community for these young girls, and the overall positive impact on staff and volunteers exceeded our expectations.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics 2012 report, Higher Education: Gaps in Access and Persistence Study, only 3.5% of bachelor’s degrees in STEM were earned by Hispanic females in 2010. This systemic underachievement in STEM can be attributed to several issues including: limited awareness, opportunities, and resources; existing perceptions about STEM; and lack of family involvement. Our Latina SciGirls program to begin tackling this important issue.

Latina SciGirls is a free program for Hispanic girls in grades 3-5 and their families that takes place twice annually over the course of several weeks at the Children’s Science Center Lab in partnership with local Title I elementary schools in Northern Virginia. Latina SciGirls is a culturally responsive program designed to address barriers that prevent Hispanic girls and their families from engaging in STEM and to promote a positive STEM identity. Critical elements of the program provide young Latinas with opportunities to engage with Latina STEM professionals to foster mentoring relationships and a parent education component to support their daughters’ interest and achievement in STEM.

Childsci Photo 4

Latina SciGirls program begins with an open house event held at the elementary school. Students, parents, and families meet program staff and the Latina STEM mentors while participating in hands-on STEM activities. Each subsequent weekly session covers a different STEM topic: physical sciences, environmental science, engineering, forensics, biology, and chemistry. The Fiesta de la Familia event celebrates the end of the session with families, girls, program staff and the Latina STEM mentors for a night of hands-on STEM activities. The goals of the program are to increase access for Latinas and their families to positive STEM programming, and promote positive STEM identity development. To ensure regular attendance of the Latina SciGirls program, the Center provides complimentary dinner and transportation each week for the duration of the program.

Over the course of each session, the Center’s staff watch as the girls’ confidence in STEM grow. Our staff take pride in their ability to create a warm and safe environment where the girls feel empowered to take risks and share their thinking while exploring STEM. The girls are introduced to female role models that they would not otherwise encounter. Having access to professional Latina mentors who share their own stories of success and failure has proven beneficial to the program. Although the program focuses on STEM, the girls practice working collaboratively, and building relationships among peers and adults — important life skills for every child’s future. We hope the girls take this initial spark and continue their investigations into the world around them, especially as they enter the crucial middle-school years when STEM interest statistically plummets. We believe each girl leaves the program open to new experiences, ideas, and people, with increased confidence and a stronger sense of self. Many of the program’s alumna seek out additional STEM experiences to grow their newfound interest.

C3MUmyNXAAAkYbB

What started out as a program opportunity has evolved into a passion project. The Children’s Science Center has served over 100 young Latinas since 2016 and is grateful to Twin Cities Public Television, General Motors, and Leidos for their sponsorship. Latinos comprise 17% of Northern Virginia’s population. With this population steadily increasing, the Latina SciGirls program will continue to be in high demand. As the Center moves forward with the capital campaign to build a full-scale science center that will more adequately serve the region’s families, we also look forward to expanding the reach of significant programs like Latina SciGirls.

At the core of the Children’s Science Center‘s educational mission is a dedication to meeting the needs of all children, in particular reaching underserved and economically disadvantaged children who traditionally do not have access to private enrichment opportunities. The Center impacts over 70,000 annually with its community programs and the Children’s Science Center Lab. The vision of the Center is to build the region’s first world-class children’s science museum on donated land in Dulles, VA.

The Center is grateful for the enthusiastic participation of a community of volunteer mentors, who have come in to lead and facilitate our STEM activities and tell their own stories of success and failure. STEM mentors have included women from NASA, USDA, PBS, FBI, and the Virginia House of Delegates. There are many opportunities through the Center to volunteer and make an impact on our local community. Information can be found here.

In The News …

Nation’s report card: Kids showing a bit of improvement in math, but many still not proficient (Washington Post Local): “The nation’s report card on math and reading shows fourth- and eighth-graders scoring their best ever in math and eighth graders making some progress in reading. But the results released Tuesday are a stark reminder of just how far the nation’s school kids are from achieving the No Child Left Behind law’s goal [...] Just a little more than one-third of the students were proficient or higher in reading. In math, 40 percent of the fourth-graders and 35 percent of the eighth-graders had reached that level.” According to the article, Maryland students in both grades showed reading improvement; according to WAMU, “Virginia’s scores in reading and mathematics remain higher than nationwide averages.”

Continue reading

7 Questions – Tim Payne (For Love of Children)

Welcome … Tim Payne, Executive Director of For Love of Children. For hundreds of children and teens, FLOC offers carefully paced, one-on-one tutoring that bring them to grade-level proficiency in reading and math and after-school workshops teach teamwork, leadership, and community service. Learn more!

1. What was your most interesting recent project, initiative, partnership, or event?

Our biggest news is that for the sixth consecutive year, 100% of FLOC seniors have graduated from high school on time and have enrolled in postsecondary institutions for the fall. We celebrated this news with many great projects and partnerships. Among the most exciting is a donation from TerpSys, an amazing corporate donor and partner. TerpSys, led by CEO Ed Woods, gifted a laptop to every graduating senior in FLOC’s 2011 class. Owning their own computers would have been impossible for these students, but TerpSys’s generous donation made it a reality for each of them. We hosted an inspiring event at our headquarters where Ed and his team presented the laptops to students.

I am also extremely proud that FLOC awarded scholarships to all of our 2011 graduates through our own Fred Taylor Scholarship Fund. We celebrated this news at the annual Fred Taylor Scholarship Dinner, which featured an extremely moving media project that used film and photography to tell the story of each graduating scholar. Our scholars helped create this project through a grant awarded to us by Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts. It was a fantastic evening where students, families, volunteers, staff and supporters came together to celebrate another successful year at FLOC. Check out the video here.

It is truly amazing to watch our students graduate from high school prepared academically, financially, and technologically for postsecondary success. Continue reading