STEM RTP End of Year Report 2018-2019

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2018 2019

END OF YEAR REPORT Creating a community where every student has the chance to pursue a career in STEM

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Fellow STEM supporters, STEM in the Park, now STEM RTP, has had a fantastic year!

Complete with a revamped series of student facing events called STEM Fests, our first University Educator ExternTrip, and the hiring of our new program manager, ReShockie Furnace! These have all increased our bandwidth and our drive to succeed in our mission to create a community where every student has the chance to pursue a career in STEM. In 2018-2019, our 3 STEM Fests brought over 400 students to the Frontier in RTP for a day of immersive experiences with current, local STEM professionals. Through 4 sessions, Think, Meet, Imagine, and Build, girls and students from low resourced backgrounds were able to experience STEM. In the spring, NC State and six organizations ran half day STEM field trips for Durham and Wake County educators. At NCSU, teachers experienced how genetics plays a role in viral infections in plants and connected that with STEM, English and Social Studies classrooms throughout Wake County.

Also in the spring, ReShockie started and had the opportunity to experience ExternTrips, SciFest and the STEMmys! As program manager, she will be on the front lines of mentoring next year’s VISTAs and managing all of our programming!

As we finish the year, we end on a high. During the STEMmys, we announced our name change: we are now STEM RTP! Same goal. More impact.

STEM in the Park is now

Sarah C. Windsor, Ph.D. Director, STEM in the Park

STUDENT IMPACT NUMBERS TechFest: 160 students

79% of students showed increased interest in tech careers 87% of students believe technology positively affects people’s lives

E M Fest: 146 students

Students significantly increased their confidence in solving problems related to engineering and math 86% of students know what engineers do at work

SciFest: 132 students

85% of students were more interested in pursuing a career in science 67% of students believe that Scientists are diverse

21 schools from 8 different counties came to STEM Fests: Chatham, Durham, Edgecombe, Franklin, Orange, Person, Wake, Warren

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Building Girls Who Code (in partnership with NetApp)

84 students from Wake Young Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Leadership Academy 85% of attendees said they gained awareness of careers in technology

Student Mentoring Program

(in partnership with Travis Manion Foundation)

20 students from Knightdale and East Wake High Schools 100% of students said after the program that they would like to spend time outside of class engaging in STEM-related activities

STEM PROFESSIONALS & EDUCATORS Impact Numbers

ExternTrips

40 educators from 23 schools 7 participating companies

70% companies were more

interested in mentoring educators after ExternTrips

STEM Fests

213 STEM professional volunteers 627 volunteer hours

67 total companies and

organizations represented

Industry Summit 40 attendees from 30

companies/organizations

All attendees made at least 3 new contacts at the event

Building Girls Who Code 37 volunteers from 8 companies 106.25 total volunteer hours

STEM Fests

This year, the STEM in the Park student-facing events were totally revamped from the previous “STEM Expo” model into three STEM Fests: TechFest, EMFest, and SciFest. In the new Fests, there are more personalized interactions between the students and STEM professionals. The students and STEM professionals loved the new format which includes the following sessions: Think Design-thinking workshop where companies/organizations bring a problem related to their work and solve it with small groups of students Build A youth-serving organization programs an interactive session for students to learn more about extracurricular opportunities in STEM Eat Students and chaperones are fed a catered lunch and students participate in a fun art-related activity

Imagine Organizations bring a hands-on demonstration to showcase a specific career within their organization to show students possible career paths Meet Speed mentoring session for students to have 1:1 conversations with STEM professionals, and learn about them as people as well as their journey to their STEM career

This year, 7th-12th grade students came from across North Carolina to participate in these five sessions detailed above. Students had meaningful interactions with STEM professionals with the goal of improving their skills and attitudes towards STEM careers, as well as opening their eyes to the possibilities in STEM that are right here in RTP. “It was great to engage with these bright students who are so passionate about science and the world around them!” – SciFest Think participant

Educator ExternTrips Educator ExternTrips are half-day immersion experiences for Durham and Wake County Public School teachers held at local STEM companies, organizations, and institutions of higher learning. We were excited to have our first-ever university ExternTrip this year at NC State. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ExternTrips were negatively influenced by hurricanes in the fall, but during the spring we were still able to work with some great educators and STEM professionals. ExternTrips are an opportunity for educators to learn about current trends in STEM fields and take that information back with them to improve classroom teaching. Each ExternTrip host plans their own activities, so no two experiences are alike, but some of the activities included:

Facility tour Hands-on activities to work into lesson plans Keynote speaker Employee panelists

2018-2019 ExternTrip Host Organizations:

Cree RTI Q Squared Solutions Credit Suisse EPA - RTP C.T. Wilson NCSU Dept. of Molecular & Structural Bichemistry

"This was an amazing chance to experience careers outside of education and to learn about the different activities and research that take place in Research Triangle Park."

-Â Southwest Elementary School Teacher

STEM Industry Summit The 3rd annual STEM Industry Summit focused on the theme “Connecting Today’s STEM Leaders to the K-12 Classroom.” To empower STEM professionals with the tools to engage with local schools, sessions focused on teacher perspectives on outreach, evidence-based methods of outreach, volunteer mobilization, and how to pitch your organization to schools.

This year, attendees participated in the new “Forward Thinking” session at the end of the Summit. Forward Thinking puts attendees into small groups to facilitate brainstorming and connections between organizations and industries to translate into a future program or collaboration.

STEM Mentoring Program STEM in the Park partnered with Travis Manion Foundation, a nonprofit that trains military veterans and first responders to mentor K-12 students, for this semester-long mentoring program with ninth graders from Knightdale and East Wake High Schools. In addition to 3 Saturday meetings where the students learned how different character traits can help them succeed in STEM, the students and mentors also toured one of NetApp’s data centers and attended SciFest.

In this new model for the mentoring program, we endeavored to help students learn more about opportunities in STEM and how to have a STEM career, while also deepening their connection to their community and to veterans.

Building Girls Who Code in collaboration with NetApp

The second annual Building Girls Who Code event, in partnership with NetApp, brought almost one hundred 7th and 8th graders from Wake Young Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Leadership Academy to Frontier RTP to participate in the following activities: App development workshop with mentors who work in tech fields Keynote speech from Kelly Pfrommer, CEO of Cloud Giants Speed mentoring with tech professionals Presentation of app ideas in a professional-style poster session

App ideas that the girls came up with included an LGBTQ+ information platform, an avenue to help homeless and lost pets, a site for EOG test preparation, and many more. 85% of the students who attended the event gained awareness of careers in technology, and 82% learned something new.

4th Annual STEMmy Awards The fourth annual STEMmy Awards, sponsored by Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Raleigh, honored local STEM professionals, companies, organizations, students and educators for their amazing work in STEM education and outreach in the last year. Members of the local community could nominate individuals, events, and organizations. Nominees were sent to a panel of judges for each category who selected winners. All of the almost one hundred attendees enjoyed the celebration, including winners, guests, and sponsors.

2019 STEMmy Award Winners STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM STEM

Volunteer of the Year- Jared Siirila, Code the Dream Student of the Year- Lorenzo Shaikewitz, Jordan High School School of the Year- Reedy Creek Middle School Educator of the Year- Angelitha Daniel, NC State University Higher Education Partner of the Year- Kenan Fellows Community Serving Organization of the Year- Marbles Kids Museum Industry Partner of the Year- BASF Event of the Year- Triangle SciTech Expo, Museum of Natural Sciences

Before the Golden Gears were awarded to winners, IBM-RTP senior executive and site lead Tim Humphrey delivered the keynote address. He discussed the importance of STEM outreach and how we need to â&#x20AC;&#x153;make STEM careers sexy!â&#x20AC;? and "you can't be what you can't see." Similar messages were delivered by winners when they received their awards, which contributed to the inspirational atmosphere.

Industry Cisco Citrix Credit Suisse Cree

2018-2019 PROGRAM PARTNERS Devada IBM Fidelity MCNC

College/University Duke University North Carolina Central University

NetApp RedHat RTI SAS

Skanska Surface 678 Unity Digital

North Carolina State University Wake Technical Community College

Government Army Research Office EPA K-12 Schools Brentwood Elementary Brogden Middle C.W. Stanford Middle Chapel Hill High East Cary Middle East Garner Middle East Wake High

Envision Science Academy Hillside High Knightdale High Louisberg High Mills Park Middle Neal Middle Person Early College

Shepard Middle Smith Middle Southeast Raleigh High Warren County High York Elementary

Professional Societies Information Systems Security Association Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network Sigma Xi Nonprofit & Youth Serving Organizations Activate Good Kramden Black Girls Code Marbles Kids Museum Citizen Schools Museum of Life & Science FIRST North Carolina NC Science & Engineering Fair Junior Achievement of STEM West East NC TerrorBytes

The Daniel Center The Science House Travis Manion Foundation WakeEd Partnership Women and Math Mentoring

GET INVOLVED

Volunteer

Volunteers are integral to the mission of STEM RTP. Mentors help uplift and inspire the next generation of STEM leaders and we work to match volunteers with opportunities that work best for them.

Partner

Sponsor / Donate

STEM RTP works with STEM companies, schools, and nonprofits to provide unique and innovative STEM programming and content. For schools looking for extracurricular activities and companies who wish to share these opportunities with others, STEM RTP works to find a good match for programming.

Financial contributions help STEM RTP sustain and broaden our mission of bringing dynamic STEM programming and mentoring to under-served students across North Carolina. We are looking for both corporate and private partners and donors. For those interested, contact Dr. Sarah Windsor at windsor@rtp.org

@stem.rtp @STEMRTP