A pandemic couldn’t stop a group of Skyline College Engineering students from holding middle school STEM workshops. On December 10th and 11th, Engineering students, Megan Chan, Lauren Gan, Christal Nevarez, Bonnie Hoff and recent transfer Lauren DeVera, collaborated with Ingrid B. Lacey’s 8th grade to create holiday led light-up cards. This collaboration was done through STEMpals, a PIF project aimed at combatting the gender disparity in STEM by connecting Skyline College Student mentors with middle school tween girls to promote science, technology, engineering and math. In order to conduct the workshop remotely, the students and their coordinator, Maryam Khan assembled activity bags that were then delivered to the middle school, where students came to then retrieve their bags. The workshop consisted of a presentation on the science behind electronics, circuit fundamentals, and then assembling a light up led card that was completely customizable for the holiday season. The students followed the instructions from the mentors along with an instructional video. It was quite amazing to see one by one students (who had their cameras on) showing their lit-up cards! We’d like to thank Ms Jean Lakata of Ingrid B. Lacey for providing the skyline students an opportunity to work with her 8th grade periods.
The STEMpals mentors really shined in the zoom workshops and we’re looking forward to continuing the efforts to inspire women of younger generations to see that careers in STEM are tangible.
Article by Maryam Khan
