This semester has been out of this world!
Originally Published January 19, 2020
The Young Scientists Program just completed its 26th semester supporting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programming in the Los Angeles based Title 1 schools. We’ve had an amazing 10 weeks of programming with 85 teachers and are looking forward to Spring 2020. This semester has been filled with amazing events where we contacted astronauts in space and learned about earthquakes. We also reached out to new partners and new donors. One of those new partners is the Women in STEM Initiative with the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office.
In Fall of 2018, Mayor Garcetti launched Women in STEM Los Angeles or (WiSTEM LA), with the goal of supporting and encouraging young women to get into and persist through STEM fields. As part of their efforts, WiSTEM is the sponsor of the three YSP staffers working closely with Ozobot. Additionally, the Mayor’s Office made the connection between Ozobot and YSP earlier this year, with the hope that the WiSTEM volunteers would have access to the best tools and curriculum to deliver their programming to youth. When we first received news that Ozobot would be donating 57 ozobots to our program, we started brainstorming how we could incorporate it into our STEM program logistically. While we were brainstorming, we were invited as a supporting partner to a STEM Discovery day at USC’s Health Science Campus. Together with one of my site coordinators Kruthi Annigeri created activities with the Ozobots for about 200 middle school and high school students. We also had Ozobot personnel teach us on how to use the Ozobots and afterwards, three of my staff volunteered to create and test the curriculum for three grade levels including third, fourth and fifth grade classrooms including Tasfia Jahangir, Rita Barakat, and Paige Havens.
We would like to thankfully acknowledge funding from the Good Neighbors Grant through the umbrella of the C-ASSETS program, the Winn Family Foundation, Raytheon, Women in STEM initiative, and State Farm.