We’re always excited to see STEM discoveries and curiosity from the community, and as such are happy to highlight a brand new series of videos from students at the GEMS Camp – Girls interested in Engineering, Mathematics, and Science.
Middle school girls participating in The GEMS Camp STEM club explore ratios and proportionality at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center located in South Dallas/Fairpark. These four videos highlight the mathematics girls found in prominent areas of the center like the MLK Jr. Statue or amphitheater KING wall mural while also sharing a little history of the center’s presence in the historic community.
Girls were recruited as participants in the out-of-school STEM club in a dedicated space operated by The GEMS Camp. Parents gave consent for participation. Girls broke into pairs or teams of three to explore the MLK site using iPads to capture photos of math around the center. They gathered as a whole group to share those findings before narrowing down their final stops (places on the campus) of interest. The following week, girls remained in teams to begin the script-writing process after being trained by Graduate Research Assistant and Executive Director of The GEMS Camp, Saki Milton. Once scripts were completed over the next two days, the research team leads refined the script. This began a 3-week process of rehearsals at the MLK Community Center with The GEMS Camp staff so that girls felt confident in front of the camera. The process was concluded with a focus group held at the center and individual Zoom follow-up interviews.
View the videos now below or on our YouTube channel here and we hope that educators and their students will be inspired by these brilliant minds who found math in their surroundings and who planned these math walk stops for the community. We are grateful to the Gems camp personnel and to the incredible girls who planned these brand new MathFinder stops that are the latest additions to talkSTEM’s open access video library of place- and inquiry-based math and STEM walks! Go Girls!!
Dr. Koshi Dhingra has dedicated her career to STEM education and is passionate about having every child live up to their potential. Seeing a lack of girls and other underrepresented youth in STEM programs, she founded talkSTEM in 2015 to address the imbalance. She has a doctorate in science education from Teachers College, Columbia University, has years of experience teaching in graduate and undergraduate programs, and has held leadership roles in universities. She advises and collaborates with a broad range of educational institutions globally. Dr. Dhingra began her career teaching science in middle and high school in New York. She lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs.
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