Rebecca: Welcoming minority middle school girls to the world of STEM.
Girl Scout Rebecca launched a program to help every girl achieve her dreams. To earn her Gold Award, Rebecca chose to make an impact by addressing the lack of educational funding in primary public schools and STEM opportunities for minority and low-income female students.
Though STEM programs are becoming widespread, Rebecca says, “Minorities, women, and students with low-socioeconomic backgrounds are still underrepresented in STEM fields. This can partially be attributed to social and educational pressures on these groups, so providing a free and inclusive STEM education opportunity as an extracurricular in early education [middle school] could encourage more students in these underrepresented groups to go into STEM fields.”
Knowing this, Rebecca wanted to remind girls that there’s no limit to what they can achieve, even in STEM. So she decided to create an accessible program to “get more groups that are currently minorities in STEM disciplines more interested in STEM.” This program helped students create STEM projects and explore new horizons in a field where they’re currently underrepresented.
Rebecca began the program by working with the National Honor Society staff and volunteers of Minnesota’s Blaine High School to facilitate lesson plans. Together, they created a welcoming space for students to partake in a hands-on learning experience. This program gave the students a chance to explore their own curiosities, develop new passions, tap into STEM skills, and further encouraged them to have fun while participating in science.
Throughout her journey, Rebecca learned how to become a leader. Rebecca says, “I worked with administration to get the STEM program approved and coordinated the implementation with administration and staff at Northdale Middle School. I worked with staff and volunteers to plan each STEM session that would work towards my Gold Award project's goal of inspiring middle school students to become more interested in STEM disciplines. And the best part was leading students through the hands-on experiments and discussions where their skills of scientific inquiry and curiosity of STEM grew.”
She also got to discover her knack for teaching while guiding volunteers and students during each experiment. Her ability to break down complex steps helped make every student feel included and cared for along the way. With this program, Rebecca truly made a lasting impact in the lives of the students she taught. She exposed them to the world of STEM, giving them a closer look at the scientific process, fundamentals of physics, engineering, chemistry, and more. While she reached many of her project’s goals, Rebecca notes that the biggest success was “seeing her students have ‘aha’ moments and get excited about STEM.”
Rebecca’s Gold Award project, Building Future Scientists and Engineers: A Middle School STEM Program, was without a doubt a rewarding experience for all. She led students as they discovered new dreams and found ways to achieve them. During the process, the students developed a stronger sense of self and built new friendships. And it doesn’t end there. Rebecca’s STEM program will continue with the help of the staff at Northdale Middle School and by volunteers from Blaine High School’s National Honor Society.
